The Jakarta administration’s plan to increase taxation on entertainment, including movie theaters and family entertainment spots, has attracted strong negative reactions from city dwellers already finding it hard to seek amusements in the city.
“How come they increase the entertainment taxes, while we don’t have any increase in salary?” Heppy Hapsari, a 28-year-old private company employee, told The Jakarta Post here on Monday.
Last week, a member of the regional legislative council Perdata Tambunan revealed that the city council was discussing increasing six local taxes, including on vehicles, fuels, parking and entertainment.
The bylaws regulating the new taxes are to be passed this week.
The proposal also discusses possible taxation of shops located in hotels, as well as catering businesses.
These local taxation increases can vary from 10 percent to 75 percent, the maximum rate allowed by the 2009 law on regional taxation.
Cinemas are among the places that would be affected by tax plans, with reports of possible increases of up to 35 percent in ticket prices.
Rahayu Ningsih, a 30-year-old journalist, said she would be better off buying pirated DVDs which would be cheaper than the movies.
Tulus Abadi from the Indonesian Consumers Foundation (YLKI) said that since entertainment was not a basic need then it was all right to increase the taxes.
However, he said, the administration should consider the different purposes of different entertainment centers. “The city administration should not increase the tax on family entertainment sites as much because as a city that lacks public spaces this is one of the main needs of a family,” he told the Post.
Contrary to the nightclubs or bars where people really look for fun and did not care about the money they had to spend, consumers of family entertainment are more price-conscious, said Tulus. The council’s deputy speaker, Triwisaksana, said residents should not worry about the tax hike plans since he thought they would not affect family entertainment spots.
“Our priority is to tax discotheques and nightclubs,” he said.
Triwisaksana said that tax increases of up to 35 percent would be imposed on nightlife businesses.
But deputy chairman of the Regional legislation body Perdata Tambunan said they had yet to decide on percentage increases.
“We are still evaluating the appropriate percentage of increases because we shall take people’s economic conditions into consideration,” he said.
Governor Fauzi Bowo said he was not aware of all this. “You can write that the governor is not informed about these taxation plans,” he told journalists on Monday.
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