Luxury villas haven't paid taxes

BOGOR: Thousands of luxury villas in the mountainous resort of Puncak have not yet paid last year's land and building taxes, totaling Rp 5.5 billion.

Head of financial and regional asset control agency of the Bogor regency Ferry Suparman said Wednesday that only 40 percent of villas in Ciawi, Megamendung and Cisarua districts, had paid the tax.

Ironically, he said, most of those who had not paid the taxes were wealthy owners of luxury villas. The tax on a luxury villa starts at Rp 5 million a year.

"Tax collectors who visited the offending villas only met the guards of the residences', they never managed to meet the owners," he said.

Data from Bogor's department of public works show that there were 48,575 buildings in the three districts.

Many of the villas were constructed on state-owned land.

Puncak was designated in 1963 as a water-catchment area, through a presidential decree signed by former president Sukarno, to prevent floods in low-lying Jakarta. Violations of the decree have worsened recent flooding in the capital. --JP