ICW reveals alleged tax embezzlement
ICW reveals alleged tax embezzlement
JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW) revealed
on Thursday an alleged multimillion dollar tax embezzlement
operation disguised under a bank's deposit scheme that has
occurred in the past five years.
The private commercial bank, identified as PT PIB, invites
customers to invest their money in a U.S. dollar deposit scheme
where its interest will not be taxed.
According to ICW, the bank claimed that it marketed such a
scheme to Indonesian customers for its sister company PBII in the
Republic of Nauru.
"But the two banks, although belonging to the same group, are
not structurally attached. PIB claimed that the fixed deposits
went to PBII, but actually the money was kept by the bank
itself," Irfan Muktiono of ICW told a media conference.
"This is an illegal way to amass funds as it violates banking
and tax regulations," he said.
He further disclosed that, according to the bank's January and
February 2000 data, there were 98 fixed deposits attached to the
scheme totaling US$10.6 million in one of its Jakarta chapters.
PIB itself has 102 chapters in the country.
ICW calculated that in two months only, the publicly listed
bank should submit some $9.6 million to the state from its
deposits interest as stipulated in Law No. 10/1994 on income tax
and letters of instruction from Bank Indonesia.
The law authorized the government to impose an average of 10
percent tax on the interest of deposits.
Irfan suspected that there was corruption practices in the
scheme, which had lured 170 big-name customers. He called upon
the government to check how they could have obtained such a large
amount of money deposited in the bank.
The corruption watchdog also assumed that such a practice was
rather like money laundering, which was also often found in
similar schemes both in state and private banks.
ICW chairman Teten Masduki said the result of the
investigation was submitted to the directorate-general of tax
early this month but he admitted there were difficulties in
investigating the case due to regulations on bank secrecy.
Teten explained that Presidential Decree No. 68/1983 forbids
the tax office to probe the identity of depositors in local banks
for taxation purposes. He sensed a conspiracy in the embezzlement
of the deposits' taxes which involved the tax office and the
central bank.
"It probably would implicate the bank accounting company,
whose initials are HTM," Teten said.
"It's time for the directorate-general to check on whether the
big tax payers have paid their obligations, and not only go after
the small fish, to reach its goal to collect Rp 179 trillion in
taxes to support the state's 2001 budget," he added.
On a separate occasion, director general of tax Hadi Purnomo
told Antara that his office had established a special four-member
team to further investigate the report from ICW.
However, he said, they had to ask for Bank Indonesia's
approval to summons the suspected banks.(bby)