Newmont agrees to pay taxes to Minahasa regency
Newmont agrees to pay taxes to Minahasa regency
JAKARTA (JP): Gold mining company PT Newmont Minahasa Raya
said on Friday it was ready to pay Rp 550 million (US$71,000) in
overdue taxes on building material to the Minahasa regency in
North Sulawesi, much less than the amount demanded by the
regency.
"We've simply miscalculated our tax payments and are willing
to pay the remaining sum," company spokesperson Yonaniko Salim
told The Jakarta Post.
The regency demanded the company pay Rp 19.357 billion in
overdue tax on the C-class mining products extracted by the
company at its gold mine in the Ratatotok area from July 1995 to
September 1998.
C-class mining products is a term used by the Indonesian
mining law to denote building materials (including gravel, stone,
sand) and industrial minerals (including kaolin, zeolith and
others).
The regency said the company was subject to the C-class taxes.
The regency filed a lawsuit last year in the Tondano District
Court, following Newmont's refusal to pay the amount.
Newmont said the C-class taxes were not included in the
obligations set in the contract of work (COW) it had signed with
the government in 1986.
It further said that it had extracted the overburden to access
the gold ore beneath, without making commercial use of the
removed materials.
A joint verification team comprising officials from Ministry
of Mines and Energy, the regency and the company was later formed
at the request of Minister of Mines and Energy Susilo Bambang
Yudhoyono to settle the dispute out of court.
Most members of the team said Newmont had used 379,000 tons of
the overburden to make aggregates for its construction needs.
They said Newmont was only obliged to pay taxes on the used
overburden.
"Newmont is satisfied with the result of the team's research,"
Yonaniko added.
However, the team's members representing the Minahasa regency
reportedly still insisted the company had to pay taxes on all the
overburden.
The Tondano District Court has yet to complete the examination
of the dispute.
The district court has thus far made several decisions in
favor of the regency, including that it had issued a provisional
ruling to temporarily suspend Newmont's operation while the
hearing process was afoot.
The Provincial High Court has approved the suspension ruling
but the District Court had yet to execute it. (bkm)