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)