Purbaya Emphasizes There is No Ijon Tax Practice in the Middle of Shortfall in Receipts

JAKARTA - Minister of Finance Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa dismissed the notion that the government was implementing tax practices to business actors in the midst of a state revenue shortfall and even admitted that he was not familiar with the term.

"I never said ijon, my people are not ijon workers. So I don't understand that term," said Purbaya to the media, Thursday, December 18.

Meanwhile, the term Ijon tax itself is understood as a practice of asking taxpayers to pay their tax obligations early in the current year, even though the tax provisions are only due the following year.

However, Purbaya admitted that the Ministry of Finance made a number of adjustments to pursue the tax revenue target for 2025. However, he did not explain in detail the form of the adjustments in question.

"There may be adjustments here and there for taxes, but we will see what the future looks like depending on the conditions on the ground," he said.

On the other hand, Director General of Taxes Bimo Wijayanto emphasized that the steps taken by the government were not tax increases, but rather the dynamics of adjusting tax installments.

He added that the adjustment was made through an increase in the installment of Income Tax (PPh) Article 25 to be in line with the taxpayer's income in the current year.

"That's why in the current year, the DJP was given the authority to adjust the amount of installments in order to adjust the existence of income patterns that are different from the previous year or income that is irregular," said Bimo at the APBN Kita Press Conference.

Without this adjustment mechanism, the amount of the installment of the PPh Pasal 25 paid each month is determined based on the total tax due the previous year after deducting tax credits.

"Then if there is a change in business activities or a change in business size and also an increase in business from taxpayers," he said.

Through this policy, he said, DJP is trying to minimize the potential for underpayment or income tax Article 29 which must be paid by taxpayers before submitting the Annual Notification Letter (SPT).

"This is intended so that the installment of taxpayers in this current year can be tried as much as possible to approach the amount of tax that should have been owed at the end of the year. What is the context? So that it can reduce the burden of unpaid taxpayers at the time of the annual SPT submission in 2026," he concluded.

For information, the realization of tax revenue until November 2025 was recorded at Rp1,634.43 trillion or equivalent to 78.7 percent of the 2025 tax revenue outlook which was targeted at Rp2,076.9 trillion.