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North Sumatra’s tax amnesty realization below expectation: Office
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Tardy taxpayers – Tax officers serve residents applying for the tax amnesty at the Directorate General of Taxation office in North Sumatra in Medan on Sept. 29. (Antara/Septianda Perdana)
T
he office of the Directorate General of Taxation in North Sumatra reported that as of Thursday it had only collected Rp 3.5 trillion (US$268.82 million) in redemption fees from the government's tax amnesty program, far below its initial expectations.
“We were given a target to collect Rp 4.4 trillion in penalties in [the first period of] the tax amnesty program, but by today [Thursday], we could get only Rp 3.5 trillion. There should be Rp 900 billion more,” the office’s chief Mukhtar said.
That amount of redemption fees ranks the North Sumatra tax office ninth among tax offices for collecting penalties. The Large Taxpayer Office (LTO) Jakarta ranks first, followed by the West Jakarta, Central Java I, North Jakarta, East Java I, Central Jakarta, South Jakarta and West Java I tax offices.
Mukhtar said, however, that he was optimistic his office could achieve its target and even exceed it before the first stage of the tax amnesty ends on Friday. He said his optimism was based on the high interest of North Sumatra people to benefit from the tax amnesty.
“As of today, 20,428 taxpayers have benefited from the tax amnesty,” said Mukhtar, adding that taxpayers had declared a total of Rp 119 trillion in assets.
Mukhtar said that his office would operate until midnight on Friday to facilitate people applying for the tax amnesty.
“We are ready to operate optimally to serve the people. We won’t go home before midnight. We do it because we’ve seen a great interest in our people to benefit from this program,” he said. (ebf)
