JAKARTA. Ahead of the end of the second phase of tax amnesty program, the Directorate of Taxation becomes more massive in targeting the professionals. Recently, the program is targeting the stock exchange players, including the issuers, securities companies, and pension funds.

According to the Ministry of Finance’s record, as of 31 October 2016, 171 issuers of securities companies, and pension funds have participated in tax amnesty. Their participation only contributed Rp 71.2 trillion of Rp 94.12 trillion total redemption fees.

The number is considered low, as there were only 60 securities taxpayers out of 139 tax amnesty participants. Meanwhile, there were only six pension funds corporate taxpayers out of 261 tax amnesty participants.

“I have instructed to re-check the SPT (annual tax letter) of the rest of 256 taxpayers, whether they are correct so that they do not need to join tax amnesty,” said the Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani at the event of the Economic Outlook at Indonesia Stock Exchange Building, Wednesday (23/11).

Let alone, most of the issuers, securities companies, and pension funds, which participated in tax amnesty, are from Java and Bali. “All of 139 securities companies are in Java,” she added. Meanwhile, there were only 60% of commissioner, directors, and shareholders joined the tax amnesty.

The Minister of Finance asked the directors, commissioners, and shareholders to improve their tax compliance. “I promise to reform taxation (system) to convince you. But do not wait until the reform ends. I have legal standings to pursue you, so there is no reason (to not comply),” Sri Mulyani said.

The Head of Jakarta Regional Office of Special Taxation Muhammad Hanif added that there are 726 companies, consist of issuers, investment managers, and securities brokerages in the stock exchange. However, “There are only 210 companies joined the tax amnesty,” he said.

To date, the issuers have contributed to Rp 26 trillion of Rp 28.3 trillion of the total tax revenues from the companies in the stock exchange. “There were only 32% or 126 issuers, which have participated in tax amnesty,” he said.

According to Hanif, some issuers are thinking that they have settled their tax obligations. Therefore, they do not need to join tax amnesty. However, some issuers still have outstanding tax obligations. Let alone, the major companies often apply aggressive tax planning so that the amount of tax they have paid is less than it should be.

(Muhammad Farid/Translator)

Editor: Barratut Taqiyyah Rafie