Tax office to collect taxes on hidden wealth

TAX - JAKARTA. The tax office has said that its officials will start collecting taxes from hidden wealth, assets that were not included in annual tax reports, which will be treated as new income and charged with a higher tariff.

Directorate General of Taxation spokesman Hestu Yoga Saksama stressed that the targets of the regulation were those who did not report their wealth and did not take part in the nine-month tax amnesty.

“For nine months, we intensively called on taxpayers to utilize the tax pardon. It is time now to enforce the law, particularly for those who did not take part in the program. We will track them down,” the official said as reported by tribunnews.com on Monday.

To arm the tax officials, the government has issued Government Regulation No. 36/2017 on tax collection over hidden wealth that is treated as income.

Hestu expressed his optimism that the new program would boost state revenue, which was targeted at Rp 1.26 quadrillion (US$94.51 billion) by the end of this year.

As of August, the tax office has collected Rp 685.6 trillion, or 53.5 percent of the target.

In the last four months, it has collected Rp 597 trillion to meet the target. From about 124 million working citizens, the government has recorded only 32 million taxpayers. (bbn)