Govt Called on to be Careful in Giving Tax Amnesty
29 March 2015 18:20 WIB
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - In a bid to boost tax compliance among tax payers, the government had issued policies on tax amnesty in 1984 and in 2008. However both attempts had failed to achieve the expected results.
“Learning from the the two failures, the government should have been more careful in initiating bills for tax amnesty,” Wiko Saputra, economic policy observer from the Center for Welfare Studies (Perkumpulan Prakarsa) said in a discussion on Sunday, March 29, 2015.
Wiko said that the tax amnesty policy in 1984 failed because it was not followed by other policies, particularly those related to tax administration system. Meanwhile when the government enforced the tax amnesty in 2008, there were 5.6 million additional tax payers and increases in tax return forms (SPT) by 804,814 and value added tax by Rp7.46 trillion (US$573.8 million).
“But after that, tax compliance rate has been stagnant and the state’s tax income has been declining. The tax ratio is not also increasing significantly,” Wiko said.
According to Wiko, the government must integrate the tax amnesty policy with other endeavors, such as providing a complete tax database. Wiko added that tax amnesty would be effective provided with a sufficient administrative system to encourage tax payers complying their obligations.
Refki Saputra, a researcher with The Indonesian Legal Roundtable, said the government need to improve the institutional system, the administrative system and the tax regulations. Refki added that the government must also set up a tax roadmap to craft short term policies.
PINGIT ARIA