Singaporean banks obstruct tax amnesty

JAKARTA. Indonesian government will be struggling to gain revenues from repatriation of Indonesians assets abroad. Recently, banks in Singapore launch a move to prevent Indonesians to repatriate their funds.

According to Reuters on Thursday (15/9), some Singaporean banks will share the data of the assets of their Indonesian clients, who embrace the tax amnesty program, with Commercial Affairs Department (CAD), a police unit deals with financial crime.

Since last year, CAD has given instruction to Singaporean banks to provide suspicious transaction report (STR) of Indonesian clients who take part in tax amnesty program.
A senior banker in Singapore told Reuters that when the clients declare their participations in tax amnesty, the bank will be suspicious that the assets in the bank are not compliant. Therefore, the bank should report the assets to Singaporean authority.

According to Reuters, Indonesians control a total amount of US$200 billion funds or 40% of the Singaporean banks’ assets.

Indonesian Director General of Taxation Ken Dwijugiasteadi said that he has not heard yet the information. However, he is confident that Indonesian are not afraid of the threat, since it is proven that declared and repatriated of Indonesians’ assets abroad come from  Singapore.

Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani, as quoted from kompas.com, admitted that she already has discussion with the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) about this matter. Singaporean government itself claimed to have advised the banks to encourage their clients to join tax amnesty program in Indonesia.

According to Singapore’s regulation, banking sector in in the country has to comply with Financial Action Task Force’s regulation that stipulates banks to report suspicious activities of their clients to the authority.

However, Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani stressed that tax amnesty is not a crime. (Translator: Muhammad Farid)