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N.Sumatra misses tax amnesty targets
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Compliance -- Medan Mayor Dzulmi Eldin (second left) hands over his asset statement letter to North Sumatra Taxation Office head Mukhtar while registering for the tax amnesty in Medan, North Sumatra, on Wednesday.
(JP/Apriadi Gunawan)
M
any taxpayers have yet to participate in the government’s tax amnesty, the North Sumatra Taxation Office says, making it unable to achieve its amnesty targets.
Office head Mukhtar said the tax amnesty revenue target for the province in the first and second rounds was set at Rp 4.25 trillion (US$316.24 million).
“The realized [tax amnesty] revenues amount to only Rp 4.1 trillion as many taxpayers have resisted availing of the amnesty,” he told The Jakarta Post after he received an asset statement letter from Medan Mayor Dzulmi Eldin, who registered for the amnesty at the tax office on Wednesday.
Mukhtar said for the second round of the tax amnesty, which ends this month, the tax office had collected only Rp 90 billion, far lower than the Rp 1.4 trillion it collected in the first phase.
“Realized revenues set for both first and second rounds are below expectation because of taxpayers’ reluctance,” he said.
Citing an example, Mukhtar said 11 individual and corporate taxpayers had initially refused to avail of the tax amnesty but had finally agreed after the tax office audited their tax reports.
“It’s proof that many of our taxpayers are somewhat reluctant to participate in the tax amnesty. They comply only after we audit them,” said Mukhtar.
Of the total 29,565 taxpayers registered in North Sumatra, Mukhtar said, only 985,000 of them had agreed to participate in the tax amnesty. He said 91 percent of participants of the program were individual taxpayers while the remainder were corporate taxpayers.
Mukhtar said his office would be more proactive in promoting the government’s program to all societal elements in the province, especially corporate taxpayers, so they would participate in the amnesty before the second round ended on Dec.31. (ebf)
