A Right Without a Remedy: Entitlement and Enforcement in Indonesia's Local Tax Surcharge
Keywords:
local taxation, surcharge, legal certainty, ubi ius ibi remedium, intergovernmental relationsAbstract
Law No. 1 of 2022 created a surcharge (opsen) under which Indonesian regencies and cities levy 66 per cent of the motor vehicle tax and vehicle transfer duty arising in their territory, in force from 5 January 2025. This article examines the legal architecture of that entitlement and identifies a structural defect. Article 83(1) of the Law vests the surcharge in the receiving jurisdiction, but Article 108(1), (5) and (6) of Government Regulation No. 35 of 2023 vests assessment, collection and enforcement exclusively in the governor. The receiving jurisdiction holds a statutory revenue right with no legal means of realizing it: where a liability goes unpaid, 66 per cent of the resulting receivable belongs to a government that cannot issue an assessment, compel payment, or commence recovery. The article characterizes this as a right without a remedy, examines the three mechanisms the framework offers in place of one — the three-working-day remittance duty, the collection synergy provision and the quarterly reconciliation duty — and argues that each imposes an obligation of conduct rather than conferring a power of enforcement. It then treats the repeated use of administrative tax amnesty as a related problem of legal certainty, since amnesty extinguishes liabilities in which two governments hold an interest but which only one may forgive. The article proposes amendment conferring either a derivative right of recovery on the receiving jurisdiction or a correlative duty of diligence on the collecting province.References
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