City to take action against only five tax evaders
Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The Jakarta administration issued distress orders on Tuesday for only five of more than 600 tax evaders, including hotels, restaurants and entertainment centers, to force them to pay their tax arrears in 16 days.
The issuance of the orders was announced by Ma'mun Amin, an assistant to the city secretary for financial affairs, during a hearing with the City Council's Commission C for financial affairs.
The orders were sent to the Omni Batavia Hotel, Sano Hotel, Nusantara Hotel, American Chillis restaurant and Pondok Laut restaurant.
Out of the five, Omni Batavia is the largest tax evader, with its tax arrears valued at Rp 1.62 billion, which also makes it one of the top five among the more than 600 tax evaders.
Meanwhile, the Sano Hotel owes Rp 1.02 billion, Nusantara Hotel Rp 67.62, American Chillis Rp 465 million and Pondok Laut Restaurant Rp 106 million.
However, the other four top five evaders -- the Sahid Jaya Hotel with tax arrears of Rp 13.27 billion, Dunkin Donuts restaurant (Rp 4.37 billion), the Park Plaza Hotel (Rp 2.57 billion), and the Orchid Hotel (Rp 2.37 billion) -- were not issued with distress orders.
City revenue agency head Deden Supriadi, who attended Tuesday's hearing, declined to explain why only five tax evaders had been targeted.
He argued that his office had to go through the correct procedures before issuing distress orders against tax evaders.
Deden vowed, however, to slap such orders on other tax evaders immediately after all the requirements had been met. Again, he refused to explain what these requirements might be.
On Monday, he said his office would issue distress orders on July 1 against all tax evaders whose arrears between 1987 and May 2003 amounted to over Rp 58 billion.
Why Deden should need more time to issue such orders is something of a mystery given that the evaders have been refusing to pay their taxes for such a remarkably long time.
Under the current rules, the city revenue agency has sufficient legal grounds to immediately take action against these tax evaders.
Based on Bylaw No. 4/2002 on local taxes, an evader must pay his tax arrears within 37 days after he receives a first demand from the agency. If he ignores this demand, the agency should send a second demand, 21 days after which the taxes must be paid.
If this second demand is ignored, the agency should issue a distress order to force the evader to pay his arrears within 16 days, after which time his assets may be seized. These assets may then be auctioned after a further 14 days.
During the hearing, a number of councillors blasted the city revenue agency for its reluctance to take action against the tax evaders.
Suyatno, a member of commission C, urged the restaurants, hotels, entertainment centers and other evaders to immediately pay their arrears as they had already collected the taxes from their customers.
"Therefore, there is no reason for the businessmen not to pay the tax to the city administration," he argued.