Finance Minister waives taxes on state-owned enterprise restructuring for three years

Jakarta (ANTARA) - Finance Minister Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa has exempted tax levies for three years on the restructuring of state-owned enterprises (BUMNs), which will be reduced from 1,077 companies to 200-300 companies.

“He (Head of the BUMN Management Agency Dony Oskaria) said the president’s target is one year. We are giving space until 2029. After that, normal taxes will apply,” Purbaya said when met after the Financial System Stability Committee (KSSK) press conference in Jakarta on Thursday.

Purbaya stated that the tax exemption aims to streamline the BUMN restructuring process being carried out by the BUMN Management Agency and the Nusantara Future Investment Management Agency (Danantara).

Currently, the tax exemption is already in effect.

“Starting now. It’s already underway (the tax exemption),” Purbaya said.

Streamlining is the process of restructuring, simplifying the structure, and reducing the number of BUMNs through mergers, consolidations, liquidations (dissolutions), and others.

The goal of streamlining is to create state-owned companies that are more efficient, focused on core businesses, and financially healthy.

“There are costs involved in this (corporate actions) and all sorts. If we tax them during the buying and selling there, even though it’s for efficiency, the costs would be very high,” Purbaya said.

Based on that consideration, Purbaya decided to exempt BUMN streamlining from taxes.

However, Purbaya emphasised that the tax exemption only applies to corporate actions in the context of BUMN streamlining. For income and others, he continued, taxes will still be imposed as usual.

“If it’s regular income, yes (taxed). But for merging, acquisitions, we set it to zero (tax). We’re giving three years until 2029,” Purbaya said.

After three years, he added, if corporate actions for BUMN streamlining are not completed, normal taxes will apply.

“For example, if it’s not finished, there are still mergers or acquisitions, we’ll charge normally. There is tax for that,” Purbaya said.

Head of the BUMN Management Agency and COO of Danantara Dony Oskaria reaffirmed the government’s commitment to comprehensive transformation and restructuring by reducing 1,077 companies to around 200-300 companies.

He stated that the BUMN reduction process will be fully executed in 2026, as ordered by President Prabowo Subianto.

As of 28 April, 167 state-owned enterprises (BUMNs) have been liquidated in the past year. In addition to liquidations, there are three other BUMN optimisation strategies: divestment, consolidation, and restructuring.