Issue: ‘Tax hike coming for Jakarta car owners’

Dec. 1, Online

The Jakarta administration says it will impose taxes on the city’s car owners starting on Jan. 1.
The tax would range from 1 to 4 percent of a vehicle’s price depending on the number of vehicles owned,
tax agency regulatory head Arif Susilo said.
“The City Council has approved the draft bylaw and it is ready to be endorsed,” Arif said Wednesday.
The tax was aimed at easing Jakarta’s traffic congestion, and would discourage residents from owning more than one car, he said.
Arif said the tax would be levied on all eligible vehicles, regardless of their age. “Cheap cars and old cars are also subject to this ruling,” he said, as quoted by tempointeraktif.com. 
Under the draft bylaw, a person who owns one car would pay 1 percent of the vehicle’s price, a second car would be 2 percent, a third car 2.5 percent and four or more cars would be taxed 4 percent.
Five million cars were now operating in the city, Arif said.

Your comments:

This is just another half-baked exercise that fools nobody and will achieve nothing to alleviate congestion in Jakarta.
It only takes a couple cynical readers to see the opportunities to avoid or exploit this initiative. Be honest and call it a revenue-generating exercise.
Until Jakarta gets really serious really soon with public transport, Jakarta is destined to be much more of a chaotic city. It is already the largest city in the world that does not have a metro system.
If the administration committed the extra revenue to getting started on a metro, people may be less concerned about the new tax.
I have little doubt that the new tax will achieve little more than jobs for more officials who will then benefit from bribes from the many that would rather bribe than pay a tax. I doubt that it will remove a single car from the chaos.
Removing the fuel subsidies for all cars would make much more of a difference and save RI lots of money.
Nairdah
Sydney

Everyone knows how creative Indonesians are.
Many Jakartans may get their cars licensed in Jakarta’s suburbs (e.g. Tangerang, Bekasi, Bogor) and still drive their cars freely to jam
the capital.
 What the city needs is a reliable public transport system!
Josh
Jakarta  

No one can drive more than one car at a time. Owning several cars doesn’t congest the roads.
They will only occupy parking spaces at home.
The only solution is a payment for using the streets. There should be tolls on a weekly, monthly and yearly basis for the whole city and people should have to pay tolls at critical routes.
Cher Ami
Bochum, Germany

I think it is important to apply progressive tax rates to cars according to the number of cars owned by a family. The more a family has, the higher the rate that will be applied to them.
Having multiple vehicles means the family can afford to pay more, and we never recognize this.
Dezin
Jakarta