To Make Gibran More Agile The Proposal Of The State Admissions Agency, Academics Express Their Benefits

Prabowo Subianto's presidential candidate and his vice presidential candidate Gibran Rakabuming Raka. (Instagram @prabowo)

JAKARTA - The issue of forming a special state revenue agency resurfaced after the candidate for vice president (cawapres) number 2, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, said this in the 2024 Presidential Election Debate held by the General Election Commission (KPU) recently. The idea is considered to be able to increase state revenue.

Lecturer at the Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB) Universitas Brawijaya (UB) Malang, Hendi Subandi said, this plan is actually not new. The plan of the Directorate General of Taxes (DJP) to become an autonomous body directly under the president has become a discussion several years ago. The reason is that taxes greatly contribute to state development with a percentage of more than 70 percent.

"With this huge contribution, it can no longer be (DJP) depending on the ministry or institution, because it will be troublesome for the movement. DGT can be outside the ministry but there must be a panel or party that controls it as a supervisor," Hendi said in his statement, Friday, December 29.

According to him, currently the effectiveness of the DGT has been running well in increasing state revenues. In the last 10 years, the state tax revenue rate has increased before the COVID-19 pandemic.

He explained, in 2014 state revenues reached IDR 985.1 trillion or 91.9 percent of the target of IDR 1,072 trillion, 2015 the realization of revenues of IDR 1,055 trillion or 81.5 percent of the target, 2016 IDR 1,283 trillion or 83.4 percent, 2017 IDR 1,147 trillion 89.4 percent, 2018 IDR 1,315.9 trillion or 92 percent, 2019 reached IDR 1,332.1 trillion or 84.4 percent of the target.

Meanwhile, in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic began to attack, the realization of tax revenues reached Rp1,070 trillion or 89.3 percent, in 2021 it reached Rp1,278.6 and in 2022 it reached Rp1,716.8 trillion

Although this achievement is fairly good, said Hendi, DGT's performance can actually move faster when standing alone. Currently, because DGT is under the Ministry of Finance (Kemenkeu), when there is a need such as adding human resources (HR), budgets or other bureaucracy cannot be implemented immediately.

Even though DGT has a tough task to keep state revenues achieved so that it can meet the APBN every year. "So the hope is that it can be separated to make it more agile," said Hendi.

Specifically for the merger with the Directorate General of Customs and Excise (DJBC), Hendi said this could be done because this directorate has a performance similar to that of the DGT. This means that the head of the Directorate General can actually be in the same house, be it the State Revenue Agency (BPN) or any agency formed by the government.

He said the challenge to realize this policy is that the merger must be made softer, because usually the merger will cause friction. For example, in the distribution of performance, composition of human resources, assets, or the main tasks of each must be explained in detail. When all these complicated things are well decomposed, it is certain that the management of state revenues through DGT and DJBC can be more optimal.

The non-technical issue of establishing a tax revenue agency, or any agency that fuses between a DGT and a DJBC, is a political commitment. Hendi advised that no ministry should be tarnished because of this policy.

"Because this tax issue is always sensitive, there must be the right political decision so that state revenues can increase," he concluded.

Previously, the vice presidential candidate Gibran Rakabuming Raka had promised that DGT and DJBC would be merged into a State Revenue Agency (BPN) if he and presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto won the 2024 presidential election. Gibran said that if the two institutions were merged, they would only take care of revenues, no longer dealing with state spending.

"We are forming a tax revenue agency, directly commanded by the president and coordinated by the relevant ministries. So the DGT and customs will be merged into one, so that we only focus on state revenues," said Gibran during the 2024 Cawapres Debate at JCC Senayan, Jakarta, Friday 22 December.