TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The government has decided to focus on micro, small, and medium enterprises (SME) in the third period of the tax amnesty program. Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said that the government would also focus on professionals and other business sectors.

"We still have a lot of expectations in terms of the participant number. The message is that this is the last period. So, the next three months is the last opportunity [to participate in the tax amnesty program]," Sri Mulyani said in Jakarta on Monday, January 16, 2017.

(Also read: SMEs Push for Income Tax Cut)

Sri Mulyani added that the government would continue to improve its strategies based on evaluations of the first and second periods. Sri Mulyani revealed that the government would formalize SME's business activities through the tax amnesty program.

"My instruction is to simplify the form and the process," Sri Mulyani claimed.

Sri Mulyani added that the tax revenue target set in this year's State Budget was quite high. Therefore, the government planned to use data to disseminate the program.

The second tax amnesty program with a retribution rate of three percent ended on December 31, 2016. The Finance Ministry's Tax Directorate General had recorded 638,023 declaration letters with a total declared assets amounted to Rp 4,295.8 trillion (US$322.9 billion).

The total amount of repatriated funds was Rp 141 trillion (US$10.8 billion). Of the total value of declared assets, Rp 1,013 trillion (US$76.1 billion) was foreign assets and Rp 3,143 trillion (US$236.3 billion) was domestic assets. However, the achievement was still below the first period of tax amnesty program and missed the target set by the government.

ANGELINA ANJAR SAWITRI|GHOIDA RAHMAH