Coal miners in East Kalimantan oppose local tax

The Association of Coal Mining Companies (APBI) has strongly opposed the East Kalimantan administration's plan to impose additional tax on coal miners in the province, saying that the local tax could severely hurt their operations.

The new ruling on the local mining retribution is known as Provincial Administration Ruling No. 20/2000.

Jeffry Mulyono, the secretary of the association, said that under the PKB2B coal mining contract signed with the central government, the coal miners are already required to pay land and building tax of US$100,000 per year, plus royalty of $0.010 per hectare of their coal mining site.

?APBI opposes the new ruling because it is applied to all mining companies including those which obtains mining license under the PKB2B contract from the central government,? he said.

He said that the additional local tax should only be applied to companies which obtain the mining license from the local government.

Meanwhile, Public Relations of the mining division of Gajah Tunggal Group, Rahimullah said that the new ruling could backfire to the local government's efforts to attract mining investors. "If mining companies abide by the new regulation, it will become a bad precedent for their future operation," he added. (*)