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| Number of passengers to Singapore drops |
| 06-JAN-2009 Intellasia | ANTARA News |
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| 6 Jan, 2009 - 7:00:00 AM |
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The number of Penguin ferry passengers to Singapore at the Sekupang International Ferry Terminal (TFIS) in Batam dropped 75% at the New Year holiday.
"Today there were only 248 passengers and on Friday 275 while on Thursday only 215 passengers," Zulkifli, coordinator of the Penguin Citra Bahari Ticket Counter at the TFIS, said Saturday.
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| Travellers walk in front of the departure billboard of airlines at the Changi International Airport in Singapore on October 24, 2008. (AFP/Getty Images) |
As of January 1, 2009 the Indonesian government applied a new overseas travel tax on those who had not registered as taxpayers or had no taxpayer's registration number (NPWP) and exempting those already having NPWP.
Ferry passengers abroad who have no NPWP are required to pay Rp1 million each for the tax and air passengers Rp2.5 million.
Zulkifli said passengers to Singapore during the holidays usually reached around 400 a day and even 500 ahead of Christmas.
The drastic drop, according to him, was caused by the imposition of the new overseas travel tax regulation.
On the first and second day of the implementation of the new tax regulation tax office at TFIS collected Rp17 million and Rp27 million respectively from passengers with no NPWP.
Bukhtarnazar, a tax official, said he had received a lot of questions from people in connection with the new tax regulation such as on whether a person working in Singapore and holding an ID of that country is also required to have an NPWP in order to be exempted from paying the overseas travel tax.
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