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PPATK, taxation office team up to probe Panama Papers
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A marquee on a building in Panama City, Panama, lists the Mossack Fonseca law firm, one of the leaders in setting up offshore bank accounts for the rich and powerful, April 4. (AP/Arnulfo Franco, File)
T
he Financial and Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (PPTK) is teaming up with the directorate general of taxation to track Indonesians who have allegedly avoided paying taxes by keeping their cash in tax haven countries, as described in the Panama Papers.
The leaked documents of the Panama-based legal firm Mossack Fonseca shows that roughly 800 Indonesians have set up offshore companies in tax haven countries to avoid tax payment, said PPATK deputy chief Agus Santoso.
The PPATK has set up a special team to investigate a number of names, particularly in connection with the findings of the Suspicious Transaction Report (LKTM) and the Analysis Results Report, he added.
"We are trying to track, in our analysis results report, whether there is any name that appears in the Panama Papers. This will be an initial information to track the connection with our report," Agus said in Jakarta on Tuesday.
In addition, the PPATK would also track whether the 800 Indonesian names in the Panama Papers were also recorded in the PPATK's suspicious transaction reports.
Arman Imran of the tax office's Tax Avoidance Division said his institution was in the process of matching the data from the Panama Papers with tax data from the tax authorities of G20 countries, which recorded that about 6,000 Indonesians potentially parked Rp11,450 trillion (US$872.71 billion) in cash abroad.
Furthermore, Arman explained, many Indonesians established offshore companies to cut their costs and increase revenues. Tax, he added, is one of the costs that need to be pressed. "So it seems that the motive is to perform tax evasion, tax planning and tax avoidance," he added.
The three most preferred tax havens for Indonesians are the British Virgin Islands, the Cook Islands and Singapore. (bbn)
