New Passenger Fees at Soekarno-Hatta Airport?

The Tangerang Municipal Council is drafting a piece of legislation that will enable it to levy and collect retribution (fees) from passengers departing from Soekarno-Hatta International Airport. The terminal that will be affected by this is Terminal II. Terminal II is physically located within the Tangerang Municipality.

Funnily enough, the Council is calling the proposed fee, a donation. However, it is not likely to be a voluntary. Simply, if it was voluntary, then who would pay it. The collection of the Tangerang Municipal fee will occur at the same time as the departing passenger pays their regular departure tax.

The Council has yet to decide how much the fee will be. The fee can be up to 10% of the prevailing airport departure tax. My guess would be that the fee will be the maximum permissible.

This means that the fee is likely to be either IDR 2,500 and IDR 5,000 depending on whether you are departing on a domestic or international flight.

This is probably the first step in a more concerted effort by the Council to collect revenue that it is entitled to do under Indonesia's regional autonomy laws.

The Keddies Bill

Here is part of the Keddies bill for services rendered. It can be found here in full. The head shot is that of the founding partner Russell Keddie.

Keddies -- The Saga Continues

You have to wonder about some lawyers who continuously take their clients to the cleaners and expect to never get found out. Keddies lawyer Philip Scroope has been accused of charging almost AUD 600 to travel less than 2 kilometres for a conference. Scroope is also accused of charging AUD 60 to write a welcome letter to a client who decided to use Keddies services. Scroope's then went on to charge AUD 49 to read an e-card thank you from the same client, and then a further AUD 49 to tell the client he was going on holiday and would be out of the office.

The icing on the cake for me is that the client was charged AUD 98 for a phone call he made from his own phone.

Keddies are undoubtedly going to claim that everything is above board and no over-charging has taken place. Nevertheless, this particular client has already had some of the fees and charges levied by Keddies refunded. Providing a refund is hardly commensurate with guilt however where there is a pattern forming of consistent refunds to clients then one wonders is this indicative of a firm culture that consistently over-charges and then refunds if there is a complaint? I guess this is something for the Legal Services Commissioner to work out.

I guess personal injury law is a very lucrative field based on the sort of money that Keddies has been able to charge over a long period of time.