Swallow Entrepreneurs Asked By The Banjarmasin City Government To Pay Taxes Honestly

Head of the Banjarmasin City Regional Finance Agency H Edy Wibowo. (Antara/Sukarli)

BANJARMASIN - The City Government of Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan has asked swallow nest entrepreneurs to pay taxes according to their harvests.

Head of the Banjarmasin City Regional Finance Agency H Edy Wibowo said that the target for local revenue (PAD) in the swallow nest tax sector is always difficult to achieve.

In fact, he said, the PAD target for swallow's nests continues to be lowered, even this year it is only set at around Rp. 400 billion.

In accordance with Regional Regulation number 3 of 2016 concerning the swiftlet nest tax, every harvest is subject to a tax of 10 percent.

According to Edy, the number of swallow nests in this city is deemed inconsistent with the tax revenue received by the city government, because it is suspected that swallow nest entrepreneurs are dishonest in reporting their harvests.

"This is what we are pursuing, we are seriously monitoring the swallow nest business sector," he said as quoted by Antara, Wednesday, June 8.

Edy said that in order to maximize the collection of the swallow nest tax, his party has also formed a team to involve the village administration.

"We re-data again the number of swallow nests in this city," he said.

Because, continued Edy, the data held by the city government was no longer in sync with the field, so it had to be updated.

"We are synchronizing with the city's food security, agriculture and fisheries services and also with swallow nest entrepreneurs organizations in this province," said Edy.

"Because the data reported to us and in the field seems to be very different, this is what we want to pursue first," said Edy.

He admits that it is not easy to regulate the payment of the swallow nest tax, because many of the owners are outside the city, even living on the island of Java.

"So we don't really know the truth about how many times a year they harvest, how much, this is their pursuit of honesty," said Edy.