Purbaya Plans to Block Assets Smuggled Abroad

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia - Finance Minister Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa has stated that he will block access to assets taken abroad by their owners who have not reported or fulfilled their tax obligations to the state. “So even if you have money abroad, you won’t be able to use it for business here anymore,” Purbaya said at his office, quoted on Tuesday (12/5/2026). He explained that before implementing this blockade, the government will give a deadline for repatriation or the obligation to bring back assets from abroad to Indonesia. The timeframe is the next six months, or until December 2026. Purbaya emphasised that the repatriation deadline until the end of this year is not in the concept of a tax amnesty programme, as the government will impose serious sanctions for non-compliance in the form of blocking access to those assets for business in Indonesia. “So this is not a tax amnesty; we’re giving it like that, giving time until the next six months,” Purbaya said. Nevertheless, Purbaya has not disclosed the exact figure for the value of Indonesian citizens’ funds abroad that have not been reported to the government and fulfilled their tax obligations to date. Clearly, he urged that those funds be quickly repatriated to the country if they are still to be used for running businesses in Indonesia. “If it enters and we find out, we’ll crack down. So those with money brought from abroad should quickly bring it here; if not, it can’t enter,” Purbaya stated. He did not deny that the number of taxpayers (WP) who did not carry out repatriation during the second phase of the tax amnesty programme in 2022 amounted to 2,424 WP, and more than 35,000 WP still failed to disclose their assets during that voluntary disclosure programme (PPS) period. Therefore, he stressed that those under strict supervision until the end of this year are those who have not repatriated their assets abroad, as well as those who have not yet reported their tax obligations to the state, not the compliant participants in the second tax amnesty programme. “We’ll investigate further later; I can’t answer now. For me, the tax amnesty is already over, but what I’m pursuing are those who didn’t join, who didn’t disclose truthfully; that’s what we’ll go after,” Purbaya said.