JAKARTA (TheInsiderStories) – Many people have praised the government over the successful of the Tax Amnesty program. However, Director General for Taxation at the Finance Ministry Ken Dwijugiastaedi is not complacent with the achievement. He sees that there is still room for improvement given the fact that only small number of registered tax payers have taken part in the program.
He said so far only 2.09 percent of individual registered tax payers (SPT) and 7.35 percent registered entity tax payers have taken part in the tax amnesty program. In addition, there are still many people who have no tax identity number (NPWP).
“Some say we (the government) has been successful, but I would say ‘not yet’. We have just completed the first phase of the Tax Amnesty program. We still have to go through to second and third phase,” Ken said when delivering keynote speech at a Tax Amnesty dialogue jointly held by the Indonesian Young Enterpreneurs Association (HIPMI) and the Insider Network, the publisher of www.theinsiderstories.com.
The first phase of the Tax Amnesty program ended at end of September and will end at end of March next year.
At present, based on the tax office data, there are currently 20,165,718 registered tax payers in the country and only 444,392 WP have taken part in the tax amnesty program with total redemption fund of Rp94.5 trillion.
Ken said the Tax Amnesty program has revealed few things. First, today, the public’s trust toward the government improved as reflected in the public’s participation in the Tax Amnesty program and tax compliance. Second, the public’s trust on the tax officers have improved thanks to “new generation” of tax officers who are now holding key positions in the Tax Office. “They are mostly below 40 years old and some of them took part in the demonstrations (to topple New Order) during reformed era in 1998,” Ken noted.
Third, tax payers now just perform their duties in paying taxes and do not negotiate or compromised with tax officers, as happened in the past. Fourth, Indonesian people in the past did not have the so-called “ashamed culture”. People are not ashamed for not paying taxes. “A Ferrari owner is more afraid for not holding driving license than owning a tax identity number (NPWP),” Ken said.
The fifth and last but not least, he said, other government institutions and entities should be more active in campaigning the importance of paying taxes. Government expenditures in education and health, as a case in point, are coming from tax payers’ money. “Therefore, education and health ministries should also educate the public about the importance of paying taxes,” Ken said.
He also joked that the Tax Amnesty program has caused disharmony among husbands and wives as wives discovered that their husbands have declared more assets that were previously hid.
“I often received calls from Ibu-Ibu (Ladies), asking me to disclose the assets that have been declared by their husbands. I said ‘No’ because it is secret,” Ken said jokingly.
In a more serious note, Ken said that many Indonesians have declared their assets held in Singapore banks. Some of those funds have been returned to Indonesian banking system, causing uneasiness on the part of Singapore banks. (*)