JAKARTA - Minister of Finance (Menkeu) Sri Mulyani openly explained to Commission XI of the DPR about the government's efforts to eradicate the circulation of illegal cigarettes in the country. On that occasion, the state treasurer said that his party had identified a number of methods used by the perpetrators to smooth out their illegal actions.
The number of illegal cigarette violations that do not use excise is getting fewer, but now they are using fake but fake excise stamps. This means they don't buy (pay) excise," he said at the Senayan Parliament Complex, Jakarta on Monday, December 12.
According to the Minister of Finance, the Ministry of Finance's Customs and Excise Directorate also found a new mode in the form of using used excise stamps.
"This mode also now exists (using used excise tape)," he said.
Furthermore, he said that another way used by the perpetrators was to buy original excise stamps at lower rates but to embed on products that were categorized as expensive.
"Here they are wrong in terms of use or mischaracterization. This is indeed the most difficult to detect because if you look at it, there is an excise tape, but actually it is not its designation," he said.
On this occasion, the Minister of Finance claimed that over the last five years the number of illegal cigarettes has tended to decline amid the increase in excise rates. In fact, the circulation of illegal cigarettes is usually increasing in line with the soaring official selling price of cigarettes because people are looking for alternatives to other products.
"The decline in the rate of illegal cigarettes occurred because the Directorate General of Customs and Excise intensively took action," he said.
Data from the Ministry of Finance states that the potential state losses that have been saved from the circulation of illegal cigarettes reached IDR 548.3 trillion throughout 2022. This value is higher than 2021 which amounted to IDR 452.7 trillion and 2020 with IDR 370.6 trillion.
Meanwhile, the number of prosecutions for cases in 2022 was 19,399 cases, 2021 as many as 13,125 cases, 2020 as many as 9,018 cases, and 2019 as many as 6,377 cases.
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