Tax payers did not join amnesty will be audited

JAKARTA. Tax amnesty (TA) program will finish in the 48 days. Ahead of the end of the program, Directorate General of Taxation claimed to be ready to audit taxpayers, who did not participate in this program.

Therefore, Directorate of Counseling, Service, and Public Relations of Directorate General of Taxation Hestu Yoga Saksama said that the taxpayers still can participate in this program until 31 March 2017.

He said, the institution will be consistent in the article 18 of Law on Tax Amnesty. “The audit will be focusing on the taxpayers, who did not participate in tax amnesty,” he said, Thursday (9/2).

Hestu also reminded the taxpayers, who received notification on unreported assets to improve the assets reporting. If the report is not improved, the tax authority will impose income tax over the additional assets plus the sanction of 200% of unpaid income tax.

According to Hestu, Directorate General of Taxation will review the tax amnesty data after March 31, 2017. The audit will be mainly focusing on the taxpayers, who did not participate in tax amnesty program.

The reminder is in line with the strategy of Directorate General of Taxation to send e-mail again to the taxpayers, who still have problems in filling annual notification letter, in the last week. Previously, the tax authority had sent e-mail to 204,125 taxpayers.
According to Hestu, the e-mail contents the data on the assets of the taxpayers that were not reported completely in the annual notification letter.

Executive Director of Center for Indonesia Taxation Analysis (CITA) Yustinus Prastowo said, the data from Directorate General of Taxation show that only 15% of taxpayers participated in the tax amnesty. This will lead to a question: what will the Directorate General of Taxation do to the rest 85% of taxpayers?

According to Yustinus, the audit on the 85% of taxpayers requires a significant number of human resources.

Hestu added, the tax authority will select the tax amnesty data in advance, before conducting the audit. The data selection will be conducted after the end of the date of the tax amnesty. In this case, the data will include the data on the taxpayers, who would have not participated in the program, as well as the data of tax amnesty participants, who would have provided less accurate data in their annual notification letter.

Hestu said, the Directorate General of Taxation will also audit those who have participated in tax amnesty but provided less accurate data. He also requested the taxpayer to submit 2016 annual notification letter, which may reflect the real conditions of the respective taxpayer.

According to Directorate General of Taxation, as of Thursday (9/2), the reported assets have amounted to Rp 4,360 trillion, while the number of asset declaration letters amounted to 676,681. Tax authority also recorded a number of 653,562 taxpayers, who have participated in tax amnesty program, with the amount of paid redemption fees of Rp 103.9 trillion. (Muhammad Farid/Translator)