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Jakarta Post

Apply for amnesty or else

Prima Wirayani (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Sat, July 2, 2016

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Apply for amnesty or else Tax amnesty: President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo speaks at the launch of the tax amnesty program at the office of the Finance Ministry’s Directorate General on Taxation in Jakarta on Friday. (Antara/Widodo S. Jusuf)

T

he government is using a “stick” and “carrot” strategy to lure and force taxpayers to report their unregistered wealth and assets to the tax office, while guaranteeing confidentiality and providing easy and comfortable services to those who are ready to make full disclosure to the government.

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, who attended the official launch of the tax amnesty implementation on Friday, warned that he had complete data on dubious taxpayers and those who had assets parked offshore.

The President said he would invite and urge them, whom he claimed were nearly all businesspeople, to join the amnesty program.

“This is a one-time chance. Those who want to use it, go ahead. Those who don’t, be careful,” Jokowi stated.

Many businesspeople flocked to the tax office on Friday, but they were not there to apply for such a pardon because the required infrastructure was not ready. They were just invited for the launch.

Finance Minister Bambang Brodjonegoro also stated his office was still preparing three ministerial regulations to implement the Tax Amnesty Law and would launch them after Idul Fitri next week.

“The full implementation [of the Tax Amnesty Law] will take place after Lebaran,” Bambang said, referring to the local term of Idul Fitri.

The government initially plans to apply the law on July 1 until March 31 next year.

The law will give a tax pardon to Indonesians whose assets have not been declared or registered to the tax authority by paying a penalty, with rates ranging from 2 to 10 percent, depending on the application period and whether they will repatriate their assets.

If taxpayers decline to apply for the amnesty before it expires in March and the government later finds their undeclared assets, they will be required to pay 48 percent penalties plus normal corporation taxes of up to 25 percent and 30 percent income tax for individual taxpayers.

The tax office has been carrying out preparations for months to ensure swift implementation. Special rooms will be designated at 341 tax offices across the country to handle tax amnesty applicants.

Tax officials will be placed at Indonesian embassies in Singapore and London, as well as the Indonesian Consulate General in Hong Kong to give such services.

Tax officials in charge and working in the rooms are not allowed to take their cell phones or any other devices inside that can be used to take pictures, as all taxpayer data must be kept discreet.

The submission of tax amnesty applications and their supporting documents must be done offline, despite the form being available online, to minimize data cracking risks during the uploading process.

 An information and technology system and application with a separate security system, database and server aims at ensuring tax amnesty and regular tax data does not get mixed up, said tax office information and communication technology transformation director Iwan Djuniardi during a separate event on Thursday.

The applicants’ data will be stored using barcodes for identification instead of the taxpayers’ names to ensure confidentiality and the data centers will be located in Makassar in South Sulawesi and Jambi. Officials’ access to the data will be limited.

“Stakeholders can easily check the tax amnesty progress in real time through the application,” Iwan said.

The tax office will also publish the tax amnesty report regularly to the public, said the office’s spokesperson, Hestu Yoga Saksama, on Friday.

Tycoon Aburizal Bakrie, who attended the Friday event, said nearly all businesspeople were interested in joining the program because in 2018, Indonesia would implement the Automatic Exchange of Information, which would shed light on dubious assets.

“This is extraordinarily brave of President Jokowi, who consistently tries to bring back assets,” said the owner of Bakrie Group.

Maspion Group president director Alim Markus told reporters he would join the amnesty and declare a plot of his land. He invited his colleagues to follow suit as the declared and repatriated assets could be used to fund their business expansions.

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