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.