PSCs in Jambi demanded to pay taxes
Friday, May 5 2000 - 04:30 AM WIB
The Legislative Council of the Jambi provincial administration has demanded at least 14 mining companies operating in the province to pay part of their income and valued added taxes to the local government, Suara Pembaruan afternoon daily reported on Thursday.
Sobirin, the chairman of the commission C of the council, said in Jambi on Wednesday that the legislators would ask the governor to close down their operations if the mining companies rejected their demand.
"We need the money to support the provincial budget," he said in a hearing with the province's Pertamina, tax and treasury offices.
According to the legislators, the mining companies such as Santa Fe, Pertamina, Gulf Reources and PT Meruap are not transparent about their oil and gas output from the province as well as about their tax payment.
The legislators also asked the local treasury office to send a letter to those companies ordering them to pay part of their income and valued added taxes to the local government. "We don't want them to pay the whole taxes to Jakarta," Sobirin said.
According to the existing regulations, the local government has the rights only to collect a half of property tax and royalties from the mine operators. Other taxes, except the local tax imposed on the C-class mineral deposits such as sand, stones and gravel, should be paid to the central government.
The head of the local treasury office said that his offices faced difficulties to collect taxes from the mine operators because they were mostly not transparent about the level of their production.
As the result, he said, last year, his office was able to collect only about Rp 500 (us$=RP8000) million in taxes from the mining firms, less than 50 percent of the Rp 1.4 billion (us$=RP8000) targeted. (*)