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EDITORIAL: Married or single: Tax targets
The single-income consideration is not applicable if they decide to split their assets and incomes under a prenuptial agreement, or if the wife wishes to exercise her own tax rights and obligations.
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Working married women have fallen victim to the government’s enforcement of tax return form (SPT) scrutiny due to different interpretations of tax laws. (Shutterstock/File)
W
orking married women have fallen victim to the government’s enforcement of tax return form (SPT) scrutiny due to different interpretations of tax laws. There are contradictory interpretations of Article 8 of the Income Tax (PPh) Law and Article 2 of the General Taxation System (KUP) Law. Article 8 of the PPh Law stipulates that the income of a married woman is considered part of her husband’s earnings if she works for a separate employer.
The single-income consideration is not applicable if they decide to split their assets and incomes under a prenuptial agreement, or if the wife wishes to exercise her own tax rights and obligations.
However, Paragraph 1 of Article 2 of the taxation system law stipulates that all taxpayers who meet requirements set by the laws should register for a tax number (NPWP). This also applies to married women even if they have arrangements with their husbands to split their assets and incomes.
There have been complaints by married couples who are obliged to pay an underpayment penalty, which is quite high for them, after they were advised by tax officers to have joint tax numbers. They are worried that they may become tax officers’ targets in the coming years because the government is desperate to improve tax compliance.
The tax office has received about 9.01 million tax return forms as of Saturday, a 9 percent increase from the 8.6 million in 2016, according to Directorate General of Taxation data. The deadline for filing tax returns for individual taxpayers has been extended from March 31 to April 21.
The tax office has been under pressure under President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s flagship tax amnesty, which concluded last Friday.
The advice by tax officers that working women, who have tax numbers and file separate tax return forms from their husbands, provide a prenuptial agreement on assets and income separation is not an easy thing to do.
