National Ombudsman supervises tax, customs services
National Ombudsman supervises tax, customs services
Rendi A. Witular, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The government has assigned the National Ombudsman Commission
to supervise the tax and customs offices, and help clean up the
two institutions from corrupt practices.
Minister of Finance Boediono signed a memorandum of
understanding (MoU) on Monday with the commission.
The move is part of a reform program required by the
International Monetary Fund.
But chairman of the National Economic Recovery Committee
(KPEN) Sofjan Wanandi doubted the effectiveness of this
commission in supervising the work of the directorate general of
taxation and the directorate general of customs and excise due to
its lack of technical expertise in the two areas.
"The commission doesn't have any technical knowledge on
taxation and customs," he said.
He suspected that the appointment of the National Ombudsman
Commission was a mere attempt to help polish the tarnished image
of the corrupt-infested tax and customs offices.
"This is just an attempt to improve their image, to show to
the public that they are currently undergoing reform program.
They chose the commission since they knew that it's toothless,"
said Sofjan.
Chairman of the commission, Antonius Sujata, dismissed such
skepticism.
"Our task is to investigate any report of misconduct made by
officials at the tax and customs offices. If the two offices
refuse to follow up our investigation results then we will report
them directly to the minister of finance," he said.
Another task is to mediate disputes between taxpayers and tax
officials before the cases are brought to the tax court, and to
follow up complaints filed by taxpayers on any misconduct made by
tax officials.
According to the MoU, the commission will establish a special
task force under the commission structure to supervise the
taxation and customs office.
Currently, personnel for the task force has yet to be
selected.
"In near time, we will recruit two experts whose jobs are to
give input and knowledge on the subjects (tax and customs). We
will also recruit personnel to be deployed to the field for
investigation," said Antonius, who is a former senior state
prosecutor.
The National Ombudsman Commission is a social and political
watchdog formed in 2000 with the purpose of ensuring the
upholding of the law by the government, courts and law enforcers.
Businesses had earlier urged the government to set up a
separate commission for the tax and customs offices. Among the
names recommended to lead the commission were leading independent
economists Faisal Basri and Djisman Simanjuntak.
But Sofjan said that the government turned down the proposal
because the above figures had been too critical of the
government.