Government plans tax offices in districts nationwide

JAKARTA (JP): The Directorate General of Taxes will substantially increase the number of tax service offices in the country to intensify the collection of taxes and to improve services to taxpayers, Director General of Taxes Fuad Bawazier says.

"The service improvement is very urgent considering that we have thus far only 120 tax service offices responsible for serving around 2.48 million taxpayers in the country," he told reporters during his on-the-spot visits to three tax offices in South and West Jakarta on Thursday, the last day for the collection of income tax returns.

Fuad was accompanied by members of the Budgetary Commission and Commission VII (for finance and trade) of the House of Representatives (DPR) in the visits.

He said that the directorate general has instructed its regional tax offices throughout the country to support and control the management and operations of tax service offices in their areas.

In addition, the directorate general will also establish a special tax office in Jakarta to serve companies listed on the capital market, he said.

"We have designed a fully computerized office for publicly listed companies, which will hopefully ease collection of their taxes," he said, adding that the establishment of the office is expected to encourage listed companies to improve their professionalism.

Fuad declined to elaborate investments for the service expansion, but said that all the planned offices will be fully operational by the end of the current fiscal year, which started yesterday.

The directorate general has now operated a special tax service office to deal with tax collection from foreign companies and organizations and another one from state companies.

Fuad said his office also plans to facilitate all its regional tax offices with computer equipment. "I believe all tax offices in Jakarta will be computerized by next year, while the other offices will be gradually equipped with computers within next five years," he told The Jakarta Post.

The computer system is now operational for the tax office in South Jakarta in what they said a pilot project for tax services in the capital.

Imperative

"It is imperative to modernize our tax offices, considering that over 50 percent of the government's domestic revenues come from tax collection," Fuad said.

According to its budget plan for the 1994-95 fiscal year beginning yesterday, the government expects to receive taxes of around Rp 34.81 trillion (US$16.25 billion), almost 60 percent of its estimated revenues of Rp 59.74 trillion domestic sources. Its tax revenues in the fiscal year will include Rp 18.84 trillion from income tax, Rp 13.24 trillion from value-added tax, Rp 1.63 trillion from land and building tax and Rp 281.7 million from other taxes.

This fiscal year's tax revenues will feature a 23-percent increase from Rp 28.2 trillion expected in the 1993-94 fiscal year.

Fuad said Thursday he was optimistic that the government's target to gain Rp 28.2 trillion from taxes in 1993-94 will be achieved due to improvement in business activities in the country.

Afif Ma'roef, a member of the Budgetary Commission joining Fuad's trips, said the collection of taxes had reached Rp 28.08 trillion as of 10:00 A.M on Thursday. But Fuad declined to make confirmation on the figure, saying that the official report on the figure is under the responsibility of Minister of Finance Mar'ie Muhammad.

Collusion

Meanwhile, Aberson Marle Sihaloho, a member of Commission VII, said the government's target is actually too low, as compared to the potentials of the taxpayers.

"Based on the World Bank's survey, Indonesia's tax payments of 13 percent of its gross domestic products (GDP) is lowest among the six members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)," he said, adding that Thailand leads the group with 17.7 percent, followed by Singapore with 16.7 percent, Malaysia with 15.2 percent and the Philippines 14 percent.

He told the Post that one of the possible factors which hampered the growth in the tax payments is the collusion between taxpayers and tax officials.

He said such a fact has unavoidably encouraged taxpayers to manipulate their tax returns, which are filled in on the basis of self assessment. (fhp)