Finance Ministry Launches Application to Reveal Bank Secrecy
13 March 2017 22:10 WIB
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Finance Ministry’s Tax Directorate General and the Financial Services Authority (OJK) launched a system uncovering confidential bank account information for taxation purposes.
The system consists of two applications to reveal bank secrecy or Akasia for the Finance Ministry’s internal uses and Akrab for the OJK.
OJK chairman Muliaman Hadad said that the system is aimed at expediting an order to reveal bank secrecy.
“Previously, it takes six months [to reveal bank secrecy], but now it only takes two weeks,” Muliaman said at the Tax Directorate General in Jakarta on Monday, March 13, 2017.
Despite the acceleration, Muliaman guaranteed that the issuance of order letters would follow the procedures and in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.
The OJK chairman explained that the applications feature, among others, automatic rejections to screen illegal requests. The applications also feature a request grouping system by banks.
According to Muliaman, both applications will help reduce the number of order letters to be signed and facilitate letter tracking.
“Statistical data on banks receiving the order to reveal secrecy is also available,” he added.
Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati expressed appreciation for the efficiency initiative, as the process of accessing bank’s data averagely takes 239 days and involves approvals from 20 officials. The new system is also more eco-friendly since it reduces paper usage. Last week, she revealed, as many as 80 requests were signed with huge piles of documents.
However, Sri Mulyani said that there are still rooms for improvements.
“Ideally, it should be automatic,” she said.
Sri Mulyani referred to her experience when working in the United States. Every year, Sri recalled, she received an email from the Accounting Reporting System (ARS) that automatically questioned a huge fund flowing into her bank account.
Sri admitted that she did not realize that the system had an access to her bank account. She added that she continued to receive the email, although an explanation had been provided to confirm that she was not a US taxpayer.
The minister hopes that the public would not be concerned with the applications.
“The Tax Directorate General accesses data not to find mistakes,” she explained.
Sri also called on the Tax DG to improve its reputation to gain public trust.
The system was launched as an implementation of the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed by the Tax DG and the OJK on the law enforcement and consumer protection in the financial services sector and taxation. The MoU was signed by Finance Minister Sri Mulyani, Tax director general Ken Dwijugiasteadi, OJK chairman Muliaman Hadad, and OJK deputy chairman Rahmat Waluyanto on Monday, March 13, 2017, in Jakarta
VINDRY FLORENTIN