Number of fake export documents decline

Number of fake export documents decline

JAKARTA (JP): The number of document manipulations for the exports of rattan, wood and leather goods exports decreased last year, an executive said here yesterday.

The president of state-controlled surveyor company PT Sucofindo, Moedjiono, told a hearing with the Trade and Logistics Commission of the House of Representatives that exporters are tempted to produce fake documents on rattan, wood and leather goods in order to evade export taxes.

The government imposes export taxes on the three commodities in a bid to discourage exports of raw materials and encourage exports of processed products in a bid to promote the creation of employment opportunities. Exports of processed products are exempted from taxes.

Sucofindo, 95 percent owned by the government and five percent by Geneva-based Societe Generale de Surveillance, was appointed to inspect all exports of rattan, wood and leather goods and their modified products.

Moedjiono said that exporters, therefore, tended to manipulate their documents by saying that their goods were processed products.

He explained that the government's revenues saved from such document manipulations decreased by 63 percent to Rp 11.47 billion (US$5.21 million) last year from Rp 31.26 billion in 1993. Sucofindo saved Rp 9.06 billion in government revenues from such manipulations.

Sucofindo, which ranked 10th at the list of the 200 largest corporate taxpayers in 1993, recorded a 14.7 percent drop of unaudited before-tax profits to Rp 133 billion last year from the audited before-tax profit of Rp 156 billion in 1993. Its audited before-tax profits for 1992 was Rp 92 billion.

Its unaudited after-tax profit dropped to Rp 87 billion last year from the audited after-tax profit of Rp 100.2 billion in 1993. (rid)