Tax tribunal settled only half of cases received in 2010

The Finance Ministry's tax tribunal received 15,000 tax-related cases in 2010, but handled only 7,200 cases by the end of the year.

In 2009, it handled only 4,600 cases.

Tribunal secretary Juni Hastoto said Wednesday that the number of cases filed in the first three months of 2011 was even higher than the figure in the same period last year, although he stopped short at citing those figures.

Juni said the tribunal settled between 20 and 30 cases a day since January, meaning it had settled about 1,800 cases in the first quarter of 2011 alone.

There had been equal numbers of cases on customs and excises and taxes, he said.

Juni attributed the tribunal's inability to settle all its cases to a lack of judges.

“We should have 51 judges, but in fact we only have 38 people now,” he said, adding that the Finance Ministry had proposed adding 11 new judges.