It Turns Out Toll Road VAT Was Nearly Implemented in 2015

The government, through the Directorate General of Taxes (DJP), is preparing a plan to impose Value Added Tax (VAT) on toll road services. This policy is one of the steps to expand the country’s tax revenue sources in the coming years. The plan is outlined in the DJP Strategic Plan (Renstra) for 2025-2029, which includes several agendas for preparing new regulations to strengthen state revenues. In that document, the preparation of rules regarding the mechanism for collecting VAT on toll road services is listed as one of the government’s priority policies to increase state revenues. “Providing a legal basis for the mechanism of collecting VAT on the provision of toll road services,” states the document, quoted on Tuesday (21/4/2026). For information, the implementation of toll road tax with a VAT mechanism is not something new. This plan has actually been around for a long time and was nearly realised in 2015. “The regulation also stipulates that toll road entrepreneurs must report their business to be confirmed as taxable entrepreneurs who subsequently have the obligation to collect, deposit, and report the due VAT,” writes the Directorate General of Taxes. With this VAT, toll road entrepreneurs are required to issue tax invoices for every provision of toll road services. To facilitate this, toll tickets become certain documents whose position is equated with tax invoices. However, the toll road VAT, which was originally set to take effect from 1 April 2015, was then cancelled by the government after receiving protests from various parties, including logistics entrepreneurs. The government in the era of President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) then cancelled the plan to impose tax on toll roads. The cancellation was carried out because the implementation time was considered inappropriate. The government through the Directorate General of Taxes then issued a new regulation that cancelled the toll road tax with the VAT collection scheme, namely DJP Regulation Number Per-16/PJ/2015, which at that time was signed by DJP Director General Sigit Priadi Pramudito.