Property tax

Property tax

From Kompas

It is the obligation of every citizen to pay their land and building tax. But what if the tax is quite disproportionate. Should we pay it to show that we are loyal citizens?

My father owns a piece of land in East Bandung mayoralty, on which he has a workshop for repairing motorized vehicles. It is located on a small lane about 20 kilometers from the center of Bandung city. The price for one square meter of land in that area in 1993 was estimated at Rp 27,000, and for every one square meter of building the estimation was Rp 191,000, which was quite reasonable.

But in 1994 the estimated land price was shockingly increased from Rp 27,000/square meter to Rp 285,000/square meter, over ten times, and the new estimation for the building was 1,6 times the old price. In fact the market price of land was only Rp 70,000/square meter.

A complaint was made to the local Tax Office in September 1994, but no reply has been received yet. We kindly ask the Directorate General of Tax to explain this matter.

RICKWAN M. Ciputat, Jakarta