TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Tax Directorate General is temporarily suspending its audit over the financial statements of Google Asia Pacific Pte Ltd. The tax dispute will be resolved through tax settlement.
The Jakarta's Tax Office chief Muhammad Haniv said the investigation will be resumed if an agreement is not achieved.
According to him, Google has been very cooperative throughout the process and plans to pay the tax they owe over the last five years. Google has been earning ad revenues from Indonesian businesses, and the government has not received incomes from value-added tax (VAT) and VATs from the OTT giant.
"Our country needs Google, and Google needs our market that comprises of 240 million Internet users," Haniv said in Jakarta, yesterday.
Haniv is certain that Google will choose to comply with what the tax authorities demand rather than undergoing an entire investigation process.
"Going through a full investigation will tarnish Google's name," he said.
In the preliminary investigation, Haniv estimated that Google has to pay Rp5.5 trillion if the investigation continued. The figure is derived from the insured tax amount of Rp1 trillion and a fine of 400 percent. "But let's forget that since this is not an investigation."
He hopes the state and Google will come up with an agreement in the next few weeks. "We will try to have the [tax paid by Google] included in this year's tax revenue," said Haniv.
PUTRI ADITYOWATI | ANGELINA ANJAR