Jakarta's Tax Revenue Is Sluggish, One Of The Causes Of The Central Government's Debt For COVID-19 Isolation Hotel Fees

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JAKARTA - Secretary of the DKI Jakarta Regional Revenue Agency, Pilar Hendrani, admitted that regional income from taxes is currently not flowing properly.

Pilar admitted that income from the tax sector has stalled since the pandemic took place. One of them, the payment of taxes from hotel companies to the DKI Provincial Government has stalled due to the central government, namely the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) in arrears on isolation fees for hotels in Jakarta.

"Now the fact is that BNPB itself owes a debt to hotels in DKI. If that is the case, then the hotel tax to the DKI Provincial Government has not been paid," Pilar said when contacted, Monday, June 21.

This is one of the factors that DKI does not have sufficient funds to cover the needs of the community if a regional quarantine or lockdown is implemented.

Based on a rough calculation, funds amounting to Rp11,083,768,944,847 were obtained from regional tax and levy revenues until the second quarter of 2021.

If the additional funds for the COVID-19 response which are owned by DKI are around Rp. 5 trillion, it is still not sufficient for the cost of eating for a month for the 10.56 million residents of DKI.

Because to meet the food needs of the people of Jakarta, with an estimated one meal of Rp. 20 thousand, it costs around Rp. 19 trillion. This does not include other supporting costs for electricity and water as well as non-KTP DKI residents residing in the capital city.

DKI Jakarta's financial condition is not in a good condition considering that it is currently impossible to withdraw revenue from business sectors that are subject to local taxes.

"So if you ask if there is money, yes there is, but enough or not enough, I can't comment because I don't know the amount of money needed. Because for the expenditure needs, it is with the DKI Jakarta Regional Development Planning Agency (Bappeda), which has the function for that. " he explained.

It is known, BNPB still has a debt of at least Rp140 billion to hotels that are isolating COVID-19 patients in DKI Jakarta.

This has caused the central government to stop financing the isolation facilities for COVID-19 patients at hotels, inns, and guesthouses in Jakarta. Not only that, the cost of lodging for health workers who handle COVID-19 is also the same.

"We still owe the hotel. (The isolation fee) specifically for Jakarta is Rp. 200,711,910,000 and we have just paid a bailout of Rp. 60 billion," said BNPB's Acting Officer (Plt) for Emergency Management Dody Ruswandi when confirmed.

"If it continues, it's a pity for the hotel because we haven't paid for everything. So far, we have used the BNPB budget, only we ran out yesterday. So we had a meeting, we said try (financing) until June 15," he added.