State companies to settle disputes over overdue taxes

The ministry of state enterprises states that it will be ready to settle disputes over overdue taxes between the tax office and state-owned companies, amounting to Rp 7.2 trillion (US$770 million).

“We will sit and discuss about the matter as the recent figures disclosed by the state enterprises and tax office are different so that we need to synchronize them,” Minister of State Enterprises Mustafa Abubakar told reporters in Jakarta on Friday.

Mustafa said that the meeting would not only to talk about discrepancies the figures but also to talk about some missperception about restitutions.6

“I will also check the state companies being mentioned in the tax office's list and summon them, so that the tax office will be able to resolve the dispute by business to business with state companies,” Mustafa said.

The tax office on Thursday reported again that 100 companies had not paid their taxes, amounting to Rp 17.51 trillion (US$1.85 billion) as of Dec. 31, 2009.Up to 16 of the delinquent companies were state-run enterprises.

Secretary to the minister Said Didu confirmed that only 12 out of 16 state companies mentioned by the tax office was the real state companies, while the rest are no longer state companies like national television TVRI.

However, out of the 12 companies, only three of them – PT Merpati Nusantara Airlines, plantation company PTPN XIV and PT Djakarta Loyd which have overdue taxes.

“Those companies could not pay the taxes because of poor businesses,” Said Didu said, adding that the three companies now were waiting some capital injection from state asset management agency PT PPA.

He said that the other nine state companies are now working to resolve the tax dispute and or in the reconciliation process.