Tax Justice Forum urged the government and house of representative to suspend the discussion of Draft Bill of Tax Amnesty, because it wounds the sense of justice. This statement is delivered in Public Hearing led by the Chairman of Commission XI, Ahmad Noor Supit.
AH Maftuchan, the coordinator of Tax Justice Forum revealed, at least there are several reasons why this draft bill should be suspended, or stopped, “First, the draft bill of tax amnesty clearly ignores the aspect of justice because there are only few of High Individual level/super rich people who will benefit from this policy. While there are people in lower-middle class who comply with tax don’t get advantage from tax amnesty policy. Second, there are plenty of researches showed that tax amnesty is not something new and ineffective. Third, the main solutions for low tax revenue in Indonesia, are law enforcement and tax system reform, not tax amnesty,” said Maftuchan.
“Fourth, Tax Justice Forum still in doubt with the effectiveness of tax amnesty related to its data and information. The expose of Panama Papers document reinforce that the tax amnesty plan will be contra productive for tax optimization effort. Fifth, Tax Justice Forum also questioned how big is the capability of state institution to receive and manage the repatriation fund,” explained Maftuchan, who also acted as Executive Director of Perkumpulan Prakarsa.
Maryati Abdullah, National Coordinator of PWYP Indonesia said, “Tax amnesty will never be effective if implemented in the bad system and practice of tax in Indonesia. Global Financial Integrity (GFI) (2015) reported that amount of tax potential loss from Indonesia caused by illicit financial flow reach around IDR 200 trillion every year. It caused by low tax compliance of superrich people, high prevalence of tax, tax evasion and tax avoidance, and poor performance of tax authority of Indonesia.”
She added, Indonesia ranks in the 7th position as a country with highest illicit financial flow. During 2003-2012, Illicit financial flow from Indonesia is around IDR 1.699 trillion or average IDR 167 per year. “Government should suspend the discussion of Draft Bill of Tax Amnesty and more focus to conduct law enforcement and foster the tax system reformation in Indonesia. Government is better to immediately discuss the Draft Bill of General Provision of Tax rather than discussing the draft bill of tax amnesty,” said Maryati.
Khoirun Nikmah from INFID said that 2017 is a momentum to implement the global standard of Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI) where every country including tax havens must open the data of customers. Government should more focus to prepare instruments for AEOI as part of an effort to increase tax revenue rather than forcing the draft bill of tax amnesty.
“Tax Justice Forum also has made an online petition to refuse the Draft Bill of tax amnesty. It has been signed by more than 10 thousand people. Besides that, Tax Justice Forum also has delivered open letter to President Joko Widodo to stop the tax amnesty policy,” said Nikmah.
Tax Justice Forum consists of Perkumpulan Prakarsa, Publish What You Pay (PWYP) Indonesia, International NGO for Indonesia Development (Infid), Transparency International, and other civil society organization emphasized that the Draft Bill of tax amnesty must be drawn from National Legislation Program.