Tax Amnesty Volume 2 Immediately Rolled Out, Dpr: Which Volume 1 How Is It?

Dpr Building (Ifran Meidianto/VOI)

JAKARTA - The agenda of tax amnesty (TA) volume 2 will be rolled out soon. This was conveyed by Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto who said that the government immediately discussed the latest tax amnesty rules.

Menko Airlangga revealed the rules on tax amnesty was included in the material in the Revision of Law (Uu) 28 Year 2007 on General Provisions and Procedures for Taxation (KUP). Tax Amnesty second volume is expected to be approved by the legislature soon because the revision of the Kup Law has been included in the national legislation program (prolegnas) 2021.

Related to this, Member of Commission XI of the House of Representatives of the MCC Faction, Anis Byarwati, questioned about the tax amnesty policy that the government had issued in 2016.

"Tax amnesty volume 1 how is it?" asked Anis in Jakarta, in a statement Friday, April 21.

Anis explained that when this Tax Amnesty (TA) policy was designed, the Government had three main objectives. First, this policy can increase tax revenues in Indonesia so that it can slightly close the budget deficit. Second, this policy can attract funds from abroad. Third, this policy is expected to expand the tax base in Indonesia which can ultimately increase Indonesia's tax ratio.

Related to the first target, chairman of the MCC DPP for Economic and Financial Affairs said, the Government targets additional tax revenues of Rp165 Trillion from this policy. In fact, initially the figure of Rp165 trillion was an additional tax revenue for 2016.

However, the target was targeted during the tax amnesty program. The latest figures show that the amount of ransom that came in was only Rp135 trillion or 81 percent of the target that had been set.

"The missed target certainly implies to the current state budget. If the figure has been included as an income target, then when it is not reached, the shortfall of Rp 30 Trillion must be patched up, either through increasing the deficit (debt) or reducing the spending post," said Anis.

Regarding the second goal, Anis who also served as Vice Chairman of the State Financial Accountability Agency (BAKN) dpr ri reminded that on various occasions, the Government has always stated that this tax amnesty policy is important to withdraw the funds of Indonesians held abroad. At first the Government stated that there are Rp11,000 trillion of funds stored abroad.

This figure is lowered, so it is close to indonesia's illicit fund estimate calculated by the World Bank, which is Rp4,000 Trillion. The latest data shows that repatriation funds only reach Rp147 Trillion, or only about 4 percent of the existing potential.

Low repatriation funds are caused by a number of things. First, the time it takes to dilute physical assets. Second, repatriation rates and foreign declarations are only a difference of 1-2 percent.

"It becomes an incentive for a person to simply declare his assets abroad, without the need to bring the funds back to Indonesia," said Anis.

Regarding the third target of the tax base, Anis stated that this third parameter is basically unproven, because we have to look at Indonesia's tax ratio in 2017 to see how big the impact will be.

"But keep in mind, a number of empirical studies show that tax amnesty policy will not have a big effect on the tax ratio," he warned.

Senior MCC politicians again reminded that the Government considers the response of taxpayers. One of the responses that will come up is that honest tax payers will be disappointed that they did not benefit from this policy, thus ultimately lowering the level of tax compliance in the future.

In addition to being disappointed, honest taxpayers also fear that state revenue lost due to tax amnesty will become a tax burden for them in the future.

"This can encourage honest taxpayers to participate in the campaign. From here we can see that now is not the right time to do tax amnesty," said Anis.

"Do not let the existence of TA volume 2 this makes the people again hurt by the sense of justice. As has been the case with the majority of tax-compliant people, which seems to be ignored by the Tax Amnesty policy in 2016," he concluded.