During a tax amnesty dissemination seminar at the Finance Ministry on Thursday, Rohanna, a member of the audience, said her son had lived abroad since 2009 to study and later work and had taken out a loan to buy an apartment there. She said he would pay off the loan using his salary over there and asked whether he should declare the apartment to the Indonesian tax office.

Taxation Directorate General spokesman Satrio Utomo, the main speaker at the event, replied that Rohanna's son did not have to declare his apartment because his salary was not subject to tax in Indonesia and the apartment was being paid for with his salary abroad.

"To pay tax, you need to meet the subjective and objective requirements. Subjectively the son is Indonesian, but objectively his salary and assets are not," Satrio said.

Another question was posed by Indonesian Employers Association (Apindo) chairman Hariyadi Sukamdani.

He pointed out that if a special purpose vehicle (SPV) was located abroad but owned by an Indonesian, the taxpayer did not have to declare it as it would be under the jurisdiction of the foreign government. However, he said that if assets were located in Indonesia, they could be reported using the “domestic declaration” scheme, which was easier than the repatriation scheme.

"But the question remains of whether the assets of some SPVs are domestically based and some are located abroad, can the domestic declaration scheme be used for all? The government needs to answer that in the technical rules," Hariyadi told thejakartapost.com on Thursday. (bbn)

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