JAKARTA - Indonesia's government plans to remove value added tax (VAT) for purchases of houses worth less than 2 billion rupiah ($126,000) until June, its chief economic affairs minister Airlangga Hartarto said in a statement on Tuesday.

From June, the government will charge only half of the VAT rate for such transactions, the minister said in a statement issued by the office of President Joko Widodo.

($1 = 15,845.0000 rupiah)

(Reporting by Stanley Widianto, Fransiska Nangoy; Writing by Gayatri Suroyo, editing by Ed Osmond)