Letter: On tax nightmare

Tue, 03/11/2008 1:37 AM | Reader's Forum

It saddens me to read R.A. Ferouge's letter on his experience with the tax office. If tax officials have gone as far as punishing people for paying their taxes then there is something fundamentally wrong with our tax office.

The consequences of such practices is a loss of tax revenue and companies relocating to countries where they are not at the mercy of their tax officials.

Hence such acts hurt the taxpayers in two ways. First, the tax rate is higher that it would have been if taxes were collected properly. Second, the decline in available jobs leads to less pay for workers (law of supply and demand).

Given that such criminal acts affect the welfare of virtually every citizen of Indonesia, the Finance Ministry should conduct a full investigation of this case. This is not just a graft case but an act of subversion (punishable by death if found guilty). It is also imperative that a control process is implemented to ensure such cases do not happen again in the future.