Alleged tax evaders say they have paid government

JAKARTA (JP): Several purchasers of fictitious value-added tax invoices have told a court that they had compensated the state's losses.

"I have deposited compensation according to the amount I was told I owe the government soon after the VAT invoices I have been paying are said to have been problematic," Yasin Sunjaya, manager of a shoe factory said when taking the witness stand on Tuesday.

He testified in the trial of two of four businessmen tried for masterminding and establishing companies to publish bogus VAT invoices, sold only at ten per cent of their face-value between 1993 to 1995.

The witness testified at the trial of Hartono and Raden Ign. Suarisman. Two other defendants Baharrudin Umar and Tony Effendy were tried in a separate room at the same court on Tuesday.

Yasin said the face value of purchased invoices was Rp 120 million but his factory has now paid the full, undisclosed, amount asked by the government after he was reprimanded by the Tax Directorate over the problematic VAT invoices.

Another buyer, Hermawan Tansil, said that his company has partly compensated the offset due to the government.

"We have paid Rp 20 million out of the Rp 60 million we ought to pay to the government," Hermawan, director of a printing company, said.

Head of the Tebet Tax Service Office, Bambang Suronit, told the Central Jakarta District Court that his office had issued a notification urging customers of the fictitious invoices to pay the government their due in missing tax revenue.

Warnings were issued following a tax audit conducted by the Tax Directorate, which ordered territories' service offices to investigate tax evasion detection.

Six companies within the Tebet territory in south Jakarta were identified as problematic, having embezzled government money

Prosecutors claimed that the government lost Rp 58,3 billion in tax revenues between 1993 and 1995 due to the dissemination among entrepreneurs of tens of thousands of bogus VAT invoices .

Another witness Yolanda Kertayasa told the court that she had collected seven per cent from the VAT supposedly collected by the government by selling 26 invoices in a conspiracy with suspect Tony Effendy.

"Tony said that he would deposit the full amount with the government," Yolanda said, unable to answer judges' questions regarding why she had consented to committing the crime in the first place.

Entrepreneurs are entitled to collect the ten percent value- added taxes when buyers pay tax during purchase. The difference between incoming and outgoing tax collected by entrepreneurs in both capacities is the amount deposited to the state.

Furthermore, entrepreneurs exporting goods are entitled to claim the amount of tax deposited with the state when these goods are exported. (14)