City Hall and directorate general of taxation sign agreement
City Hall and directorate general of taxation sign agreement
JAKARTA (JP): The city administration and the directorate
general of taxation yesterday signed an agreement on information
exchange to closely monitor the tax returns of hotels and
restaurants.
"The program is aimed at unveiling any inconsistencies between
the financial statements reported to us and the ones reported to
the city administration," Fuad Bawazier, the director general of
taxation at the ministry of finance, told reporters yesterday.
Owners of restaurants and hotels are required to collect a 10
percent sales tax on food, beverages and rooms and pay it to the
city every month.
The tax, called Pembangunan Satu (development one) is
collected by the central government which distributes the money
equally to all mayoralties and regencies in Indonesia every three
months.
The tax is meant to further regional development, hence its
name.
Because the tax must be deducted immediately, restaurants and
hotels may be reluctant to report the true amount of the tax they
collect, Fuad said.
This is different when it comes to reporting to the
directorate general of taxation, because the amount of the tax
they have to pay is determined by their profit and loss
statements, Fuad said.
"So, we suspect that they report greater figures to the
directorate general of taxation but less to the city
administration," Fuad added.
According to Fuad, it is small and middle-sized restaurants
and hotels which tend to resort to such practices because their
reports may not be audited or are improperly audited.
Asked to comment on the Pembangunan Satu tax, Fauzie Alvie
Yasin, the head of the City Revenue Office, said the amount of
the tax for hotels used to be five percent of room fees, as
determined by a presidential decree issued in 1983.
But since January 15, the amount was increased to 10 percent,
Fauzie said, adding that the tax is applied to all hotels without
regard of their rates.
As for restaurants, Fauzie said that all restaurants, except
food stalls owned by low-income people are subject to the 10-
percent Pembangunan tax, including almost all Padang restaurants.
According to Fauzie, last year his office collected about Rp
90 billion from the tax while this year, the amount of the tax
his office expects to garner is Rp 140 billion.
Apart from information exchange program, another area of
cooperation between the city administration and the directorate
general of taxation is in the field of personnel training.
Postal services
On the occasion, the city administration also signed a
cooperation agreement with the state-owned Perum Pos dan Giro.
The agreement is aimed at extending postal services to the
city's subdistricts and intensifying the function of post offices
as "payment points" for the collection of various taxes,
including radio and television taxes, Marsoedi, president of the
state-owned Post and Money Transfer Company, said.
Marsoedi said that currently his office uses rooms in 20
subdistrict offices in Jakarta as additional or extension post
office counters. At present, there are 264 subdistricts in
Jakarta.
The extension postal counters can serve any kind of postal
transactions except sending and receiving telegrams, sending
intercity one-day postal delivery service (pos patas), payment of
money orders and payment of Tabanas savings, according to Ani
Purba, an information officer of the Jakarta First Class Post
Office.(06)