Tangerang to hike ‘foreigner stay tax’

TANGERANG: The administration of Tangerang regency is expected to increase a tax that foreigners must pay to live in the city.

A local council member tasked with deliberating a bylaw on regional income, Muchlis, said foreigners would have to pay a one-time fee of Rp 100,000 (US$11) for a permit to live in Tangerang. The fee is 300 percent more than the existing one-time tax foreigners must pay.

Jakarta does not impose any such tax.

The increase is part of a plan by the regency administration to boost the local income. Currently, the local council and the regency administration are working on a draft of the bylaw.

“Currently, the fee applied for foreigners living in the Tangerang regency is too low. We have to increase the fee to get more income for the city’s coffers, so that we can add more regional income,” Muchlis said as quoted by tempointeraktif.com.

Muchlis said the regency administration could reap a significant amount of money from foreigners in the regency, whose numbers had swelled in recent months.

Fellow council member Entus Satibi said the local government should produce a comprehensive list of all foreigners living in Tangerang before enacting the fee increase. “Not all foreigners within the region have been listed,” he said. Currently, there are more than 2,600 foreigners living in Tangerang. — JP