In a bid to save cultural heritage buildings, the Yogyakarta municipality will provide incentives to taxpayers who own old buildings, in the form of maintenance allowance, tax breaks, or both.

Data from the municipality shows there are 87 such buildings in Yogyakarta, including the Kraton (palace), old schools and old places of worship.
As many as 444 other buildings are also in the process of being categorized as heritage buildings.

The Yogyakarta Culture and Tourism Office is currently assessing the heritage buildings to determine the allocation of incentives in order that they would have legal strength due their unclear legal basis thus far.
"Evaluation criteria include the condition of a building, its historical value and period of architecture," office head Hadi Muchtar said Monday.

The assessment, he added, would be complete by September.
"We have proposed that buildings included in the list of cultural heritage be exempt from tax," he said.

Yogyakarta City Tax Office head Wisnu Budi Irianto said his office was still waiting for the evaluation results from the culture and tourism office and the tax office before providing tax breaks and incentives.
He added the heritage buildings were protected by law, and that the municipality, through a mayoral decree, had promised to provide tax breaks or special incentives.

In response to the incentives for the buildings, Wisnu said it would only be discussed after the evaluation process was complete.

"For instance, taxpayers of heritage buildings will receive incentives of between Rp 1 million *US$95* and Rp 5 million, according to the condition of the buildings, or they will get privileges in the form of incentives and tax breaks," he said.

One of the cultural heritage centers in Yogyakarta is in Kotagede, a former center of the Mataram kingdom dating back to the 17th century, which was dedicated as one of the 100 protected cultural heritage sites in the world on June 6, 2007, by the World Monuments Fund (WMF), based in New York, the United States.
However, the cultural heritage center is under threat of further damage due to the massive earthquake in Yogyakarta and Central Java in May 2006, and the lack of attention and support from the government.

As many as 110 ancient traditional buildings, such as joglo structures dating back a century ago were damaged in the quake.

(Source: The Jakarta Post)