World Bank Criticizes Tax Revenue, Luhut Says Full Support Of Core Tax Implementation

Photo: Doc. Antara

JAKARTA - Chairman of the Indonesian National Economic Council, Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, said that his party was quite disciplined after conducting a briefing with the World Bank, it was known that domestic tax collection was less than optimal.

"We were actually triggered because of our briefing with the World Bank. So the World Bank is our criticism that we are one of the countries that collect taxes that are not good, we are equalized to Nigeria," he said in a media briefing, Thursday, January 9.

Luhut said that based on the results of a briefing with the World Bank, if Indonesia manages to carry out the Core Tax implementation program, it will increase tax revenue to 6.4 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or around IDR 1.5 trillion.

Luhut explained that the DEN specifically provides full support to the Directorate General of Taxes at the Ministry of Finance in implementing Core Tax which is the backbone of national tax reform.

According to Luhut, this system will increase taxpayer compliance, so as to increase state revenue.

In addition, Luhut conveyed that the version 6.0 of the e-catalogue system which is integrated with cross-sectoral data from the government will help reduce the potential for budget waste, improve the quality of procurement, and ensure efficiency in state spending.

Luhut emphasized that digitalization is not only a solution to increase efficiency, but also an important step to build public trust in governance.

"We fully support the implementation of Core Tax and other digitalization programs to ensure that every policy provides real benefits to society," he said.