TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The National Campaign Agency (BPN) of Prabowo Subianto - Sandiaga Uno criticized the poor tax compliance rate under the management of Finance Ministry. Based on the ministry’s Tax Directorate-General (DJP) data, the tax compliance rate was recorded at only 61.7 percent up to April 1, 2019, which was obtained from the annual tax return (SPT) submission.

“This proves that the government has failed to carry out reformation in taxation sector,” said the BPN Prabowo - Sandiaga member, Haryadin Mahardika, when contacted in Jakarta, on Tuesday, April 2.

According to Haryadin, the low tax compliance rate was caused by numbers of problems in the DJP because of its inflexibility in responding to the dynamics of personal, organization, and technology needs.

In addition, Haryadi assessed that the DJP did not have the autonomy to set its budget and deploy human resources needed due to the bureaucracy at the Finance Ministry. For example, he went on, only 44,000 people work in the DJP.

“That means, the number is very low compared to the population. Compare it to other countries that have a higher number of employees. The ideal number of DJP personnel is a twofold current number,” he added.

Therefore, Prabowo - Sandiaga camp offers several strategies to increase the tax compliance rate and tax revenue. First, separate the DJP from the ministry as to provide broader autonomy. “Especially for budget, personnel, and organization,” Haryadin said, adding that the pair will also add more DJP officers.

Earlier, the DJP spokesman Hestu Yoga Saksama announced that a total of 11.309 million out of 18.334 million citizens have filed the annual tax return, only 72.9 percent from the set target of 15.5 million. However, the rate increased by 6.6 percent compared to that of in 2018 at 10.61 million.

FAJAR PEBRIANTO

Read: 7 Million Indonesians Yet to File Annual Tax Returns