Death doesn't come cheap for Deli Serdang's Chinese

feb,06-2008
Apriadi Gunawan, The Jakarta Post, Deli Serdang

Karya Elly is still alive and kicking. But Karya, who is of Chinese-Indonesian descent, has made up his mind that when he does die, he wants to be cremated, not buried.

The father of two has made his wish known to his wife and children because he did not want to burden them with the high cemetery taxes imposed by Deli Serdang regency in North Sumatra.

The 43-year-old said that ever since the regency administration imposed the tax for Chinese-Indonesians in 2003, many preferred to be cremated to avoid paying it.

"Almost 85 percent of Chinese-Indonesians here have been getting cremated since Deli Serdang regency imposed the tax. The other 15 percent got buried simply because their burial plots were organized long before," said Karya, who is acting head of the Chinese-Indonesian Social Family Association in Medan city.

He said the cemetery tax is collected by the regency through foundations set up to manage Chinese-Indonesian cemeteries. There are 11 of such foundations in the regency, each managing one cemetery.

In 2003 the foundation had to pay a total of Rp 15 million in tax. That amount has increased every year since.

"In 2006, the cemetery tax paid by the 11 foundations was around Rp 150 million. We've heard that this year, the amount will rise by 100 percent," Karya said.

"But we're not going stay quiet about this. We will fight back."

Karya said if the tax increase can't be stopped, the foundations will have no choice but to shift the burden of paying the tax onto individual families.

Under a 2006 local ordinance, the responsibility for paying the tax falls on the foundations. However, the ordinance is currently under review by the regency administration, with a change making the families of the dead responsible for paying taxes being the most likely outcome.

Karya said that tax collection for Chinese cemeteries in Deli Serdang was currently covered for the 11 foundations by the Medan-based Angsapura foundation.

He said that many of those buried in Deli Serdang were moved from Medan city in the 1970s and 1980s, when most of the Chinese-Indonesian cemeteries in the city were closed down. Only one such cemetery remains in Medan, Deli Tua, because it is located on the border with Deli Serdang.

Karya said the cemeteries in Deli Serdang are the only burial places for Chinese Indonesians in the province. Many of the cemeteries are 50 years old and cover areas of between one and 10 hectares. All the cemetery land is owned by the foundations.

He said he assumed the regency administration was driven to impose the special cemetery tax by the large number of cemeteries in the area.

"But (the fact that) the cemetery tax is specially aimed at Chinese-Indonesians is discriminatory, since other ethnic groups' cemeteries don't have to pay tax. We can prove this since we've done our own investigations," he said.

Other cities, such as Medan, do not impose a tax on Chinese cemeteries.

Karya, who also chairs the group Cemetery Local Ordinance Justice Seekers, said it was unreasonable that the regency was collecting tax on land not being used for production. He said the 1994 law on land and building tax stipulated that places of worship and sites such as cemeteries were exempt from tax. The 2000 law on local tax and revenue also stipulated that cemetery land was not taxable, he said.

The two laws, Karya said, meant Deli Serdang's cemetery tax was on shaky legal ground. "Deli Serdang's local cemetery tax ordinance should be canceled law since the law clearly states that cemeteries are not taxable. (National) laws take precedence over local ordinances."

The head of Deli Serdang Legislative Council's special team on the cemetery tax, Syarifuddin Rosha, said not all Chinese-Indonesian cemeteries have to pay the tax.

He said the tax was only imposed on graves measuring more than 3.75 square meters, not for those below that size. Based on a 1987 government regulation, 3.75 square meters was the maximum size allowable for a grave.

"Based on that regulation, we decided to impose the tax on graves bigger than the regulated size. Graves belonging to Chinese-Indonesians in Deli Serdang are very large, with the biggest one measuring 200 by 300 meters," Rosha told the Post.

Big graves can be found in every Chinese-Indonesian cemetery in Deli Serdang, such as the graveyard in Sibiru-biru district. In the graveyard, which is managed by the Angsapura foundation, at least 800 of the approximately 4,000 graves are large plots owned by the rich.

When asked if the tax was discriminatory, Rosha responding by saying the tax was simply being collected because some graves were larger than the regulated size, and not for any discriminatory reasons.

The local ordinance, he said, was not just intended to raise money but was also aimed at regulating the use of land.

"If we let all the land in Deli Serdang be used for cemeteries for Chinese-Indonesians, the area won't be productive. We have this restriction in order to prevent all the land being bought up for Chinese cemeteries," he said.

He said the cemetery tax was still being discussed by the council.

"Following complaints from Chinese-Indonesian residents about the tax, we've propose two local ordinance models. The first would be to stop tax collection but we would then have to tear up the (big) graves. The second (option) would be to still allow the big graves but require them to pay tax. From those two (options), it's likely we'll opt for the former," Rosha said.

The revised local ordinance, he said, is expected to be approved later this month.

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