People to repay tycoons' debts

People to repay tycoons' debts

From Suara Karya

In the draft state budget for 2001, which the government presented to the House of Representatives on Oct. 2, 2000, 72 percent of the state's revenues (about Rp 172.44 trillion of the projected revenues of Rp 242.99 trillion) will come from the tax sector. It is also projected that income tax will contribute Rp 93 trillion, up by 90 percent from the figure in the previous budget, and that value-added tax will yield some Rp 46.85 trillion, or 80 percent more than in last year's budget.

This means that the government will make every effort to optimize tax receipts in order to be able to reach the target. This is evident from the amendments to the Tax Laws, which will become effective only in January 2001.

As is commonly understood, economically speaking our society, the members of which constitute tax objects, still lags far behind those in other countries of Southeast Asia, where economic activities are carried out to the optimum from the upstream to the downstream sectors.

On the state spending side, the burden that the state will have to bear owing to the payment of interest on offshore loans in 2001 will amount to Rp 77.40 trillion, which figure constitutes the biggest portion of the state's routine spending of Rp 186.85 trillion.

From media reports we have learned that most of these offshore loans have been incurred by the Jimbaran Group or the Cendana family and their cronies. So, who actually must assume responsibility for the shattered economic condition of the country?

Meanwhile, the members of society are required to set aside part of their income to pay income tax and other taxes, and we know that tax receipts provide quite a substantial contribution to the payment of the interest on the offshore loans incurred by these business tycoons.

Does all of this reflect justice? Then, what about tax manipulations committed by giant companies, most of which are also controlled by the Jimbaran Group and the Cendana family, as a result of which losses worth trillions of rupiah are inflicted on the state? What has the government done to recoup the money siphoned off by these tax manipulators?

Now that the business tycoons have robbed the people of their money by cunningly evading the payment of tax to the state's coffers, must the government just sit idle although eventually it is the government which must settle the debts of these tycoons' by using the people's money collected by the government in the form of income tax and other taxes, regardless of the worsening economic plight of the people. How does this differ from forced labor? The answer is, "Don't wait until independence becomes the answer."

SYAFRYANTO ADAM

Jakarta