Finance Minister Purbaya Reveals 'Naughty' Subordinates as Reason for Coretax Sluggishness
Finance Minister Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa has revealed the reasons behind the frequent slowdowns in the Coretax system. According to Purbaya, there is involvement from his subordinates whom he described as acting naughtily.
Purbaya stated that he often receives reports that the Coretax system is frequently unusable. “In Coretax, suddenly there are reports again that it’s ‘spinning around’. Even though the problem had previously disappeared. It turns out that in our place (the Ministry of Finance), there are some who are naughty,” said Purbaya at the Presidential Palace in Jakarta on Friday, 27 March 2026.
Purbaya suspects that there are subordinates who are still collaborating with vendors that had previously been terminated by the Ministry of Finance. These vendors, he said, had their contracts ended because they could not provide optimal services. “There are those who contract with a vendor that we had already terminated because of slow service, and it’s been sneaked back in,” said the former head of the Deposit Insurance Corporation.
Currently, Purbaya stated that the Ministry of Finance is investigating who is responsible for reintroducing these problematic vendors. “Later, I will check again who brought back that vendor, and we will take action,” he said.
In addition, Purbaya also revealed other issues with the Coretax system. Purbaya assessed that Coretax has a somewhat odd design due to the presence of an interface page or intermediary that does not directly connect users to the service.
Purbaya stated that this interface makes the Coretax system complicated. “It turns out it’s made a bit complicated so that in the middle there’s its own interface application. This is sold to large companies. I just found out,” he said.
Purbaya stated that he will endeavour to resolve these issues so that tax reporting via Coretax is no longer complicated. According to Purbaya, the Ministry of Finance will strive to ensure that such problems do not arise again in the next tax reporting period.
Purbaya had previously exposed a series of technical obstacles in the Coretax system that make it difficult for laypeople to report their Annual Tax Notification Letters (SPT). He admitted to experiencing technical disruptions himself when filing.
When filing his SPT, Purbaya stated that the system repeatedly experienced loading issues. “To be honest, I didn’t fill it out myself; I was accompanied by tax officials. Enter (the system), spinning again, four times before it could enter,” he said during a question-and-answer session with reporters at the Ministry of Finance office in Jakarta on Wednesday, 25 March 2026.
According to the state treasurer, the problems with the Coretax system are caused by design issues and suspicions that certain parties are exploiting loopholes in the system. The certain parties revealed by Purbaya are third-party application services or intermediaries that offer easier access to Coretax. Thus, the system is deliberately made complicated.
“The weakness is, you know there are software or application services that connect Coretax with customers? They say it’s fast if you use that. So I suspect that Coretax here is made messy,” he said. Purbaya suspects that these services are connected to large clients.