SME approached for tax amnesty

JAKARTA. Government will target small and medium enterprises (SME), mainly the people’s business credit (KUR) recipients to participate in tax amnesty.

During the first phase of tax amnesty, tax authority recorded unsignificant participation of SME in tax amnesty. According to data from Directorate General of Taxation, SME corporate taxpayers only consisted 14,338 or 3.9% of the total tax amnesty participants, while the SME private taxpayers consisted of 54,319 or 14.78% of taxpayers. 

SME private taxpayers and corporate taxpayers contributed to Rp 2.9 trillion and Rp 194 billion of Rp 93.2 trillion of total redemption fees during the first phase of tax amnesty.

In order to socialize tax amnesty program to KUR recipients, Directorate General of Taxation will involve Coordinating Ministry of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Cooperative and SME, and several financial institutions, which provide KUR.

“We will provide technical guidance on how to participate in tax amnesty,” said Director of Public Relations of Directorate General of Taxation Hestu Yoga Saksama on Sunday (9/10).

The program will target KUR recipients at the retail segment. Data from Ministry of Cooperative and SME show that currently 3.3 million of retail KUR recipients manage an Rp 71.2 trillion of total creditDeputy of Funding Affairs at Ministry of Cooperative and UKM Braman Setyo said that the ministry is ready to facilitate the socialization.

Chairman of Indonesian Young Enterpreneurs (Hipmi) Bahlil Lahadia admitted that some of Hipmi members at the segment of SME need to receive more information related to tax amnesty program. “They face dilemma on declaring their assets, since they do not have sufficient funds to pay the redemption fees”, he said. (Translator: Muhammad Farid)