Tax authority to have easy access to bank data

JAKARTA. Starting from March 1, 2017, the Directorate General of Taxation at the Ministry of Finance will have easier access to bank data for audit and investigation purposes.

Previously, tax authority needed 239 days or about eight months to obtain the data. Nowadays, tax authority would only need a maximum of one month, or even in only one week to process the access to the data.

To date, the Ministry of Finance utilizes the system of Akasia or the Application of Proposal for Bank Secrecy Disclosure for the internal purposes. This system would be synergized with the Application of Bank Secrecy Disclosure operated by OJK (Financial Service Agency) to accelerate the process of the request for the audit of taxation data by the Ministry of Finance.

Director General of Taxation Ken Dwijugiasteadi, Monday (13/2) said that actually the tax authority has been able to access the data on the bank accounts for investigation purposes. “This application will accelerate the link to the Ministry of Finance and OJK,” Ken said.

The Director of Law Enforcement of Directorate General of Taxation Dadang Suwarna said, the Directorate General of Taxation had conducted trials of the Akasia system in 10 regional tax offices and 16 tax offices. In the future, the application will be implemented in all regional tax offices and tax offices throughout Indonesia.

“If (the trials) run well, (the system) will be directly implemented throughout Indonesia,” said Director of Counseling, Services, and Public Relations at Directorate General of Taxation Hestu Yoga Saksama.

The more rapid access is supposed to accelerate the process of audit over the taxpayers. Let alone, some companies or taxpayers consider that the tax investigation is a laborious process, while the results are not necessarily satisfactory.

Even, during some audit process, the taxpayers often have to settle their obligations first, although there has been no final decision from the tax court.

In referring to the Minister of Finance Regulation No 17/PMK.03/2013, the process of audit over the taxpayers can take eight months, and can be extended to two months. The process becomes complicated, on the grounds that Directorate General of Taxation needs a longer time to obtain comparative data, including banking data.

Member of OJK’s Board of Commissioners of Banking Affairs Nelson Tampubolon said, the disclosure of bank’s secrecy data should comply with the existing procedures, despite of the easier application. “I am not sure that the banks can provide the data related to the owners of the deposits, except through the existing procedures,” he said.

However, OJK is ready to support the implementation of the system, in terms of supporting the government in boosting the tax revenues.

Economist at Bank Permata Josua Pardede said, under the current condition, the disclosure of bank’s data is supposed to be no longer a barrier, as it has been a global trend. “Let alone, the government has signed the agreement of automatic tax data exchange,” he said. As the consequence, starting from 2018, no bank data can exempt from the tax audit. (Muhammad Farid/Translator)