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Indonesia vows to eradicate corporate money laundering, tax evasion
An MoU allows ministries to synchronize data with the Law and Human Rights Ministry’s database on business ownership to crack down on illicit practices
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Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) deputy chairman Alexander Marwata and an investigator show the bribe money the KPK seized during an operation into a bribery case on Nov. 28, 2018. (The Jakarta Post/Seto Wardhana)
T
he government is set to intensify its crackdown on people hiding behind business entities for corruption, money laundering and tax evasion following the signing of an interministerial agreement on sharing information on corporations’ beneficial owners.
The memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed on Wednesday by several ministers and their representatives, including Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna Laoly and Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati.
“The information on beneficial owners will assist law enforcement and terror funding, among other things, because it provides information of the real owner of a company,” Yasonna said on Wednesday.
In 2012, the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) went to great lengths to prove that former Democratic Party treasurer Muhammad Nazaruddin was the beneficial owner of holding company Permai Group and dozens of its subsidiaries.
The antigraft body eventually succeeded in proving their allegations after years of investigation. The court later sent the politician to prison for using the Permai Group to launder the ill-gotten money he obtained in a previous graft case.
The MoU would allow these ministries to synchronize their data with the Law and Human Rights Ministry’s database on beneficial owners of business entities and later use them according to their respective work areas.
Sri said the agreement would help her office in counting the real amount of tax it could collect, as such data on beneficial owners would complete pieces of information already obtained by the ministry through the automatic exchange of information mechanism.
