Survey Of Indicators: The Public Is Still Willing To Pay Taxes Despite Rafael Alun's Gratification Case

Rafael Alun Trisambodo at the KPK (Photo: DOK ANTARA)

JAKARTA - The Indonesian Political Indicators Survey Institute released a poll on public evaluation of the performance of law enforcement agencies. One of the survey findings concerns the level of trust of the Directorate General of Taxes (DJP) of the Ministry of Finance. The main researcher for Indicators, Burhanuddin Muhtadi, explained that despite the gratification case of former DGT official, Rafael Alun, the majority of the public were still willing to pay taxes. As many as 63.4 percent of respondents learned about the Rafael Alun case which had more assets than the assets reported to the state. Meanwhile, 36.6 percent did not know about the case. Of the respondents who knew, 9.2 percent really believed to keep paying taxes, 54.6 percent believed enough, 29.1 did not believe it, 4.8 percent did not believe it at all, and did not answer 2.3 percent. "Among residents who know, the majority still believe in DGT as an institution that manages tax results and the majority still believe in paying their tax obligations," said Burhanuddin in a survey presentation, Sunday, July 2. However, Burhanuddin said there was a gap between the level of trust and compliance to continue to pay tax obligations, which was around 20 percent. Respondents who said they really believed in the DGT in managing the tax revenue 16.5 percent, quite trusted 67.2 percent, 10.9 less believed, 4.3 percent did not believe it at all, and 1.1 percent did not answer. "Believe the DGT does not necessarily mean that you believe that you will continue to pay taxes. In the future, the state's main income, namely the tax sector, has the potential to decline. Therefore, public trust in continuing to pay taxes must be restored," he explained. The most appropriate way in restoring public trust in DGT is to punish tax workers who are proven to be corrupt by obtaining 33 percent of respondents and firing tax employees who cannot account for their wealth which exceeds reasonableness by 29 percent.

It is known, this survey was held from June 20 to June 24, 2023. The survey was conducted on 1,220 respondents using the multistage random sampling method. This survey has a margin of error of around 2.9 percent with a confidence level of 95 percent.