Different look, different Tax Amnesty data

JAKARTA. Tax authority has changed the display of data on tax amnesty statistics on the website of www.pajak.go.id.

In the previous format, the website displayed data about the amount of declared and repatriated assets, as well as redemption fees paid by taxpayers.

However, started from Thursday (15/9) 17 pm, tax authority changed the tittle of “redemption fees revenues (penerimaan uang tebusan)” column to “tax amnesty revenues (penerimaan tax amnesty)”.

By changing the display, tax authority presents data that show significant increase in the realization of the tax amnesty revenues.

Few hours before the display changed, the website mentioned that realization of redemption fees just amounted to IDR12 trillion. But after the change, the revenues have increased to IDR 21 trillion.

The number of revenues on the revised display actually consists of obtained redemption fees and other types of revenues, which are claimed as part of ‘tax amnesty revenues’ by Directory General of Taxation.

Aside of redemption fees, the number also includes the taxes paid by taxpayers who join tax amnesty while they are in a process of inspection of preliminary evidences of taxation violation.  Until the news was revealed, the type of tax revenue contributed IDR 251,11 billion to the ‘tax amnesty revenues’.

The ‘tax amnesty revenues’ column also includes additional IDR 2.26 trillion of tax revenues from taxpayers who paid the tax arrears and also joined tax amnesty program.

Until the news was revealed redemption fees just amounted to IDR 18.85 trillion.

Director of P2 Public Relations at Directorate General of Taxation Hestu Yoga Saksama explained that those types of revenues are categorized as ‘tax amnesty revenues’ under the article 8 sentence 3 of Law on Tax Amnesty.

Executive Director of Center for Indonesia Taxation Analysis Yustinus Prastowo considered that tax authority has made mistake by including the revenues from payable tax settlement into redemption fees data. 

Yustinus added that the revenues from payable tax settlement have to be included as regular tax revenues, not as ‘tax amnesty revenues’. (Translator: Muhammad Farid)