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)