The customs and excise office plans to propose to the Finance Ministry to eliminate a non-tax levy on exports, which is considered to be clogging up the flow of exports. Exporters are also backing this move.
The proposal comes after a new policy introduced by the office to enforce the payment of the levy up front - as compared to the old practice of paying it after exports were completed - has caused an additional logjam in export activities.
Exporters have been asked to pay Rp 60,000 (US$6) per export document. Moreover the Tanjung Priok port and Soekarno-Hatta airport receive together about 1,580 such documents per day. The new policy, effective from Aug. 1 in the port and airport did not result in good implementation with designated banks managing payments efficiently. But the banks also wanted to cover their own additional transaction costs, which helped caused queues in the customs and excise office, with exporters preferring to pay the levy direct.
Many exporters also owe debts for previous unpaid payments levies, which caused the newly introduced IT system to block the exporters concerned, further delaying exports.
To address these problems, director general of customs and excise Anwar Suprijadi met with exporters on Wednesday. Anwar has agreed to lift the blockade until Sept. 20, while his office looks at the system.
Exporters and custom brokers are temporarily allowed to pay the levies after their goods are shipped.
“Until Sept. 20 we ensure there won’t be any blockade [for exporters late in] paying the levy,” he said.
“Exporters and custom brokers with debts must pay their debts six months from Sept. 1 [at the latest].”
Anwar said the debts in cumulative late payments amounted to about Rp 80 billion since 2004.
Amalia Achyar, chairman of the Indonesian Exporters-Importers Association, said she had requested that the Finance Ministry should eliminate these levies as they did not help exports which helped create currency reserves for the country.
She added however that the association would ask its members to pay their accumulated debts as required by the government.
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