diff --git a/src/Filters/DataRefReplace.php b/src/Filters/DataRefReplace.php
index 8834a94..9db8bdf 100644
--- a/src/Filters/DataRefReplace.php
+++ b/src/Filters/DataRefReplace.php
@@ -94,12 +94,21 @@ private function isAPhTagWithNoDataRefCorrespondence($phTag)
     {
         $parsed = HtmlParser::parse($phTag);
 
-        return (
-            isset($parsed[0]) and
-            isset($parsed[0]->attributes['dataRef']) and
-            !isset($parsed[0]->attributes['equiv-text']) and
-            !array_key_exists($parsed[0]->attributes['dataRef'], $this->dataRefMap
-        ));
+        if(!isset($parsed[0])){
+            return false;
+        }
+
+        // if has equiv-text don't touch
+        if(isset($parsed[0]->attributes['equiv-text'])){
+            return false;
+        }
+
+        // if has dataRef attribute check if there is correspondence on dataRef map
+        if(isset($parsed[0]->attributes['dataRef'])){
+            return !array_key_exists($parsed[0]->attributes['dataRef'], $this->dataRefMap);
+        }
+
+        return true;
     }
 
     /**
diff --git a/tests/MateCatSubFilteringTest.php b/tests/MateCatSubFilteringTest.php
index 691a13c..c643eb4 100644
--- a/tests/MateCatSubFilteringTest.php
+++ b/tests/MateCatSubFilteringTest.php
@@ -659,4 +659,24 @@ public function testHtmlStringsWithDataTypeAttribute()
 
         $this->assertEquals($back_to_db_segment, $db_segment);
     }
+
+    public function testPhTagsWithoutDataRef()
+    {
+        $Filter = MateCatFilter::getInstance( new FeatureSet(), 'en-EN','et-ET', [] );
+
+        //dataRef="source1"
+        $db_segment = '<ph id="1j" type="other" subType="m:j"/>';
+        $expected_l1_segment = '<ph id="1j" type="other" subType="m:j"/>';
+        $expected_l2_segment = '&lt;ph id="mtc_ph_u_1" equiv-text="base64:Jmx0O3BoIGlkPSIxaiIgdHlwZT0ib3RoZXIiIHN1YlR5cGU9Im06aiIvJmd0Ow=="/&gt;';
+
+        $l1_segment     = $Filter->fromLayer0ToLayer1( $db_segment );
+        $l2_segment     = $Filter->fromLayer1ToLayer2( $l1_segment );
+
+        $this->assertEquals($l1_segment, $expected_l1_segment);
+        $this->assertEquals($l2_segment, $expected_l2_segment);
+
+        $back_to_db_segment = $Filter->fromLayer1ToLayer0($l1_segment);
+
+        $this->assertEquals($back_to_db_segment, $db_segment);
+    }
 }
\ No newline at end of file