T

he estimated 25 million registered corporate and individual taxpayers who are required by law to file their 2014 income tax returns before the end of this month should understandably feel flabbergasted by what is publicly perceived as a series of blatant attempts over the last two months to debilitate the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).

This turn of events seems all the more tragic since the weakening of the antigraft body is taking place under the administration of President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo who chose impeccable integrity and clean government as the main pillars of his election platform last year.

Many of us are are disgusted by how political compromises have created a situation in which Jokowi allowed the KPK to be bashed and attacked by a group of corruptors. The President should realize that his ambition to increase taxes to as high as 16 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) from the current 12 percent, the lowest in the ASEAN region, would simply remain a dream if the tax effort depends only on vigorous collection and repressive measures against tax evaders.

Even now tax evasion has been quite massive, as evdenced in the low tax ratio, due to inadequate technical competence, short of qualified staff and corruption within the tax directorate general.

True, tax compliance will increase if the cost of tax evasion and non-filing tax returns is very high. People will fulfill their tax obligations if they know that their chance of being caught by tax auditors is very high.

But the tax authority will never have an adequate number of auditors to examine all taxpayers because it would not be cost efficient to recruit so many tax officials to examine the returns filed by so many taxpayers.

Hence, the government should nurture a culture of tax paying to encourage people to voluntarily and properly file their annual income tax returns. But voluntary tax compliance will not grow in a vacuum. Nor it will be enhanced only by strong law enforcement. Voluntary tax compliance will grow when taxpayers know that their money is properly used by the government for the interests of the public.

Put another way, as long as the government is still perceived to be quite lax in combating corruption, thereby letting taxpayers'€™ money end up in the wastebasket, there will be no significant improvement in the attitude and motivation by the public to voluntarily pay their taxes. Hence, voluntary tax compliance is strongly influenced by the taxpayers'€™ perception of the integrity of tax officers and the government'€™s credibility with regards to governance practices.

The government dependence on taxes should foster interaction between the state and society, making the government more responsible to its citizens.

The number of registered taxpayers will steadily increase as the government has imposed many disadvantages on those who do not have taxpayer registration identification numbers, but this would not result in bigger tax receipts if taxpayers suspect their money is misused by corrupt officials.