Measures planned to fight bad importers

Measures planned to fight bad importers

Rendi A. Witular, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Industry and Trade
have agreed to work together to suppress bad importers who have
caused the state huge losses in import tax revenues.

Under a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed last week,
the two ministries will take up a number of measures to fight the
crooked businessmen.

Details of the measures are not yet available as the
directorate general of customs and excise, which is under the
finance ministry, and the directorate general of international
trade, which is under the industry and trade ministry, have yet
to work them out.

Susiwiyono, spokesman of the directorate general of customs
and excise, however, has mentioned that included among the
planned measures is a verification process on importers'
identities and addresses, compiled by the directorate general of
international trade as the single authority in issuing import
licenses.

The verification process would mainly focus on field
monitoring activities by customs officials to ensure that the
addresses and identities submitted by importers in applying for
their licenses are accurate and true, Susiwiyono said.

He said that field monitoring activities should be undertaken
prior to issuing import licenses, but that this had often been
neglected by the directorate general of international trade.
Under this measure, customs officials would also examine the
operation of importers, he explained further.

The output of the monitoring is that importers would then be
classified accordingly into low- or high-risk categories.

The customs office, moreover, will have the authority to
reject bad importers from clearing their goods, even if they have
an import license. The office would also file a report at the
directorate general of international trade to consider
appropriate punishment for such importers.

The customs office had previously complained that some of the
addresses of importers, as gathered by the directorate general of
international trade, turned out to be false.

Because of this, customs officials had been unable to track
bad importers who had underpaid their import duties and taxes as
required by the country's self-assessment tax system.

A report printed in this paper previously said that the state
had suffered some Rp 25 trillion in revenue losses during the
past three years because of the tax arrears. This means that on
average, Indonesia has suffered losses amounting to Rp 8 trillion
annually, or twice the budget allocated to help the poor survive
the current hike in utility prices.

Earlier, the finance ministry, under pressure to collect
revenue for the state budget, issued a decree requiring all
importers to obtain licenses from the directorate general of
customs and excise also. However, this move was protested by the
Ministry of Industry and Trade, which insisted that import
licensing was under its authority.

Under the new MoU, the finance ministry finally agreed to keep
the import licensing authority within the Ministry of Industry
and Trade, but the two agreed to design a new import licensing
procedure to ensure that importers would not submit falsified
documents when applying for their licenses.

Thus far, details on the new procedure are still being
discussed, but a source at the customs office said the procedure
would establish the customs office as the first gate of import
licensing.

The source said that importers wishing to obtain licenses from
the directorate general of international trade must first obtain
a letter of recommendation from the directorate general of
customs and excise.