Sunday, June 1, 2014, 17:30:49 WIB

Two pairs of Presidential and Vice-President Candidates are ready to compete in the Presidential Election (Pilpres) in the country on July 9, 2014. They are required to be transparent regarding their wealth.

However, the two pairs of Presidential and Vice Presidential Candidates namely Joko Widodo-Jusuf Kalla and Prabowo Subianto-Hatta Rajasa were deemed insufficient to fulfill the requirements for submission Report of State Officials Wealth (LHKPN) solely related to the transparent aspect. But it is also necessary to disclose their tax returns (SPT) to their tax publicly.

“It’s not just LHKPN because (LHKPN) is not transparent enough,” said Coordinator of Publish What You Pay (PWYP) of Indonesia, Maryati Abdullah in a discussion about the Movement to Open the Presidential Vice Presidential Tax Return in Jakarta, Sunday (1/6).

Maryati explained, on behalf of the Fair Tax Forum, her party considered the LHKPN which had been submitted by two pairs of Presidential and Vice Presidential Candidates to the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) had not been able to fulfill the transparency element.

“LHKPN is only the obligation to report when it first took office, promotion, and retirement,” he explained.

But it does not describe the issue of tax payments. Whereas compared to LHKPN, tax returns are sustainable every year.

“The SPT can be submitted every year and can be verified for LHKPN,” Maryati said again.

For this reason, it is proper for the pair Joko Widodo-Jusuf Kalla and Prabowo Subianto-Hatta Rajasa to reveal tax returns. Considering the community must be able to clearly know the level of compliance of both the Candidate and Vice President candidates in paying taxes. Moreover, Maryati added with the Tax Return, the public could know the level of wealth growth of each candidate.

“I think we all know, to ensure that the candidate pairs are not corrupt and money laundering, then the level of wealth of the candidates/state officials is very important for the public, see whether the growth of wealth is fair or not and is called fair because if the candidate pairs pay taxes according to the assets owned, ” Said Maryati.

Source: Jurnas