T

he controversial tax amnesty draft bill will begin to be deliberated by the House of Representatives'€™ Legislation Body (Baleg) on Monday, lawmakers say.

Baleg member Hendrawan Supratikno said that everything was in place for the lawmakers to begin discussions on the draft. '€œWe have changed the name of the draft to the tax amnesty draft bill from the national pardon draft bill to avoid misrepresentation,'€ he said on Sunday.

Hendrawan, who is an Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) politician and member of Commission XI, which oversees finance, insisted that the bill aimed solely at addressing tax-related issues and not to pardon violations outside the tax field.

'€œWe have revised several articles in the draft that we think may lead to misrepresentation, including Article 10, because there is this perception right now that we are looking to pardon corruptors as well,'€ he added.

The bill was proposed by 33 lawmakers representing factions of the Golkar Party, the PDI-P, the United Development Party (PPP) the and National Awakening Party (PKB).

The proposed bill, designed to bring back billions of US dollars parked overseas, will write off unpaid taxes and remove criminal charges related to taxation. All individuals are allowed to apply for the tax pardon except those involved in terrorism, human trafficking and narcotics.

The bill has been widely criticized because it does not include corruption in the exception, but Hendrawan said that the bill was revised and corruption had also been exempted amnesty.

The proposed tax amnesty draft would be separated from a revision to the General Tax System (KUP) to be deliberated at the House as well. The revision will also include a tax amnesty.

The government launched this year its second so-called sunset policy allowing corporate and individual taxpayers to pay back taxes without penalty or interest for up to one year from the start of the amnesty date. The policy was first introduced in 2008. Under the policy, the penalty imposed for late tax payments between 2009 and 2014 will be waived. However, taxpayers are only given a deadline of the end of 2015 to pay the principal amount.

Finance Minister Bambang Brodjonegoro previously said that the amnesty was a tool to put an end to capital flight and bring back trillions of rupiah in Indonesian assets that were kept overseas.

The government has stated a number of times that it will be difficult to rely on tax revenues alone to finance development, especially to fund major infrastructure projects costing trillions of rupiah.

The latest data from the Tax Office shows that tax revenues, excluding those from the oil and gas sector, stood at Rp 647.03 trillion (US$47.7 billion) by the end of September, accounting for only 52 percent of this year'€™s target of Rp 1.24 quadrillion.

Tax Office spokesperson Mekar Satria Utama said that the economic slowdown and rupiah depreciation had impacted the low revenues, especially those generated from corporations.