Purbaya to report export value manipulation to President Prabowo
Jakarta (ANTARA) – Finance Minister Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa is prepared to report findings of manipulation of export-import trade document values (trade misinvoicing) to President Prabowo Subianto at a limited meeting at the Presidential Palace Complex, Jakarta, on Thursday.
Purbaya said they checked three shipments from ten randomly selected companies. The companies operate in the palm oil sector (crude palm oil/CPO).
‘Mereka kelihatan sekali melakukan manipulasi harga ekspor ke Amerika Serikat,’ Purbaya said.
Although he could not name the ten companies, Purbaya gave an example of the trade invoice manipulation carried out by one of the companies. For example, one company recorded an export price of 2.6 million US dollars, while the price paid by the importer in the United States was 4.2 million US dollars.
The government has formed PT Danantara Sumberdaya Indonesia (DSI) as a Special Export State-Owned Enterprise to increase national revenue.
This export body regulates governance policies for the export of natural resource commodities (SDA) that will benefit the state, because it can curb practices of recording export values lower than actual (under-invoicing) which have long caused revenue leakage.
The establishment of DSI itself stems from government findings related to alleged under-invoicing and transfer pricing in the export of SDA commodities.
ANTARA’s data indicates that transfer pricing in the export of natural resource commodities is the practice of setting transaction prices between companies within the same group or with affiliate ties, particularly in selling commodities abroad.
As a result, large profits are recorded abroad and Indonesian profits appear small, while taxes and royalties received by Indonesia become lower.
In the context of exporting natural resource commodities, trader companies are intermediary trading firms whose main task is to buy commodities from producers and resell them to other buyers, usually to international markets.