Tax payers

Director General of Tax Fuad Bawazier has stated that there are still many informal sectors, such as food stalls, which have not been made subject to taxation even though their turnover can reach trillions of rupiah. Besides food stalls, there are still many shops, kiosks and occupants of luxury houses in Jakarta which have not been registered as taxpayers.

To intensify and broaden the collection of outstanding taxes with respect to small and medium-sized businesses, I wish to propose that the Directorate General of Tax launch the following programs:

1. Area control, known in Dutch colonial times as the external service, should be reintroduced. During the Dutch colonial rule, officers of the external service would take turns every year registering taxpayers from street to street in the entire area overseen by a particular tax inspection office (now the tax service).

These external service officers had in their possession a detailed map of the area they were in charge of. They would come to every house in the street and take down the names of the occupants in a certain house and what they did for a living. Those having a means of earning a living would be registered as taxpayers. These officers would keep track of the people they noted and would keep record of any changes occurring to these people from year to year.

In those times, a given area would be under the supervision of a tax inspector, who would keep detailed records of the condition of taxpayers in his area. As far as I know, this external service was scrapped during the organization of the Directorate General of Tax a long time ago.

2. Associations of businesspeople and professionals of the same trade should be set up in an area overseen by a tax service. These associations should cooperate with the Directorate General of Tax and the chamber of commerce and industry, and take as their model the tax return guidance system already successfully implemented in Japan.

In this way, income tax may be collected through these associations. The governing boards of these associations would provide tax return guidance and discuss matters related to this during its deliberations. The associations would also assume responsibility for the collection of taxes. In this way, taxes would be collected on the basis of democracy and mutual help involving active participation of the taxpayers. The Directorate General of Tax would simply supervise the system's implementation by assigning some tax officers (or, perhaps, retired tax employees) to help the associations.

3. In order for these first two proposals to be realized, it would be necessary to simplify the administrative and procedural systems of taxation.

The realization of all of these ideas would mean that tax collection would be the joint concern of both the Directorate General of Tax and all Indonesian people who are willing to pay taxes of their own accord. This system, which has been successfully implemented in Japan since 1948, is worth imitating here. In Japan all statutory bodies and private citizens, without exception, pay taxes. They have a high sense of nationalism and discipline in tax matters.

If we wish to be successful in our national development, we should take the Japanese as our models in this respect. It must always be remembered that we have our own Pancasila philosophy which recognizes deliberations for a consensus.

SUHARSONO HADIKUSUMO

Jakarta