This is especially necessary after the President’s biological brother and business tycoon, Hashim Djojohadikusumo, stated on Dec. 1 that Prabowo's administration would proceed with the plan. Just around a month before, on the day he announced his cabinet in October, the President said he wanted to keep the Finance Ministry intact.

We can understand that Prabowo wants to dream big by aiming to increase state revenue collection to equal 23 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by the end of 2029, from currently around 12 percent of GDP, however, we fail to understand how the planned revenue agency, or ministry, would fit the bill to carry out such a task.

Prabowo and his close advisors vowed they would improve tax administration and address potential tax and non-tax losses, but we have heard that before and yet the country still struggles to collect the amount of revenue it needs.

Instead of comforting words, we want to see real reforms in how the government collects its revenue.

As things stand, it does not matter whether the revenue office is placed inside or outside the Finance Ministry. We cannot expect different results if the new administration does not have a plan to do anything about the existing system and mindset.

Moreover, there is no guarantee that the new agency would be more daring to implement and enforce taxation and other revenue regulations, including to ensure it would not face any intervention from the people holding power or those near them.

The country has rolled out two tax amnesties, in 2016 and 2022, revealing over Rp 4.8 quadrillion (US$301.4 billion) worth of hidden assets in the first period and another Rp 594 trillion in the second period.

Yet, we almost never hear about any measures taken based on the data the government has collected in those programs. Lots of Indonesian taxpayer assets have also remained overseas.

In November, the House of Representatives already started gearing up to introduce a third tax amnesty. We’ll see if the government will stay true to its word in 2022 after it vowed “no more tax amnesty”.

The government rarely acts to uphold rules and proper conduct. We saw one case earlier this year where former tax official Rafael Alun Trisambodo was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment for money laundering and accepting unlawful gratuities worth Rp 10 billion from taxpayers. Even that was only revealed during a criminal assault case filed against his son early last year, which inadvertently exposed Rafael’s lavish lifestyle, one which did not match his wealth profile as a top official at the Finance Ministry’s Tax Directorate.

We also should warn that establishing a new agency or ministry is a costly process. On top of additional overhead, the process could mean years of distraction that would prevent government officials from optimizing existing opportunities to truly increase revenue as soon as possible.

If the government is not careful, the plan could cause a setback to a list of costly priority programs promised during this administration. There is a possibility that the benefits of this new agency would not be tangible within the coming five years of Prabowo’s tenure.

There are also multiple works that the new agency would need to prepare, namely the long-delayed carbon tax and a new centralized digital system called Core Tax, as well as enforcing both international initiatives of global minimum tax and multinational corporation taxation.  

Now we can only hope the government will weigh the cost and offer good reasons for deciding on this new revenue agency.

It is never too late to shelve the plan if it is proven to not hold real value in its ability to help increase the country’s revenue collection.