In Order To Attract More Investors, CoFTRA Will Evaluate Crypto Taxes

Illustration. (Photo: Unsplash)

JAKARTA - The Commodity Futures Trading Supervisory Agency (CoFTRA) plans to evaluate the application of crypto taxes so that investors only bear half of the total tax currently imposed so that more and more investors are interested in the Indonesian crypto market.

"It is necessary to conduct an evaluation and reconsider the imposition of this tax. Hopefully, from the total tax currently imposed, crypto investors can only be charged half," said Head of the Commodity Futures Development and Development Bureau CoFTRA Tirta Karma Senjaya in a statement in Jakarta, quoted from Antara, Saturday, March 2.

According to him, these efforts are needed to keep new growing domestic crypto market growth opportunities in recent years, given tax regulations that now apply to increase costs that must be incurred by investors.

Tirta also stated that the imposition of taxes on the crypto sector needs to be evaluated and reconsidered by all stakeholders, including CoFTRA, the Financial Services Authority (OJK), the Directorate General of Taxes at the Ministry of Finance, associations, and market participants, so that the nominal tax applied is in accordance with the expectations of all parties.

He said that taxes obtained from crypto transactions had been able to increase state revenue by around Rp259 billion and contribute more than 50 percent to fintech industry revenue.

Asparkrindo Executive Director Asih Kerniangsih said the large number of taxes imposed on crypto market players in Indonesia made them choose to switch transactions in foreign markets.

Therefore, adjustments need to prevent this because it can have an impact on the competitiveness of domestic crypto exchanges. Moreover, crypto assets will be part of the financial sector," he said.

Indodax CEO Oscar Darmawan said that now there are various types of crypto asset taxes applied in Indonesia, including Income Tax (PPh) of 0.10 percent, Value Added Tax (VAT) of 0.11 percent, and an additional 0.02 percent for exchange, deposit, and clearing costs.

"Moreover, if you transact using stablecoins such as USDT, you will be subject to tax doubling. The number of taxes imposed makes the total amount of taxes paid by investors expensive and has the potential to kill the crypto industry in Indonesia," he said.

He considered that to increase the competitiveness of the domestic crypto market, the imposition of VAT needed to be abolished so that crypto assets were only subject to PPh.

"Because in the near future the crypto industry from CoFTRA will be transferred to the OJK, meaning that crypto will become part of the financial industry. Therefore, it is not appropriate if VAT is still subject to VAT and it is hoped that the tax can be 0.1 percent," he said.