JK: Big entrepreneurs should avail of tax amnesty

Jakarta. Vice President Jusuf Kalla has asked big entrepreneurs to set a good example to other entrepreneurs by availing of the tax amnesty policy. Entrepreneurs with a large scale business must benefit from the tax amnesty program for which there is a newly-enacted law on tax amnesty.

"It is the big entrepreneurs who must set an example. We will encourage them," he said at the Vice Presidential Office here on Friday.

"As I know from Forbes (magazine), they have (many) riches. But what is the state of their tax obligations?" he asked.

The law applies to all sections of the community. However, large-scale entrepreneurs must be encouraged to benefit from the tax amnesty program, he noted.

"Tax is deducted from the salaries of the public officials. In general, the state officials' wealth matches the data of the taxman," he explained.

The government had launched the tax amnesty program in mid-July in the hope of collecting Rp165 trillion under the program, which will last for nine months until March 2017.

Finance Minister Sri Mulyani informed on Thursday that the government is expected to receive Rp1.18 trillion in tax amnesty redemption money by the end of August 2016.

The minister disclosed that the amount of redemption money and the number of Asset Declaration Letters (SPH) were rising every day, although the scale is still nominal.

"We predict that the amount of repatriated funds will increase significantly in September because the rate (of redemption during the first three-month period) is the lowest, both for individual and corporate taxpayers," Sri told a hearing of Commission XI on Financial Affairs at the House of Representatives (DPR) in Jakarta on Thursday.

(M. Irfan Ilmie)