"Hopefully this policy will allure them to do it," he said here on Tuesday.
Darmin said the government had decided to give the incentive because exporters had never kept their foreign exchange income from exports in the country for a long time so far while on the other hand the law on foreign exchange traffic allows it.
He said if their foreign exchange income is kept in the banking system in the country for a long time it could maintain US dollar supply and Bank Indonesia had once issued a regulation in an effort to hold it.
"The law does not allow the holding of the foreign exchange income longer in Indonesia so that many of them came and then left again and as a result we are short of foreign currencies," he said.
In view of that Darmin said he hoped the current incentive would lure exporters to keep their foreign exchange income in Indonesia so that US dollar supply in the country would increase and to prevent deep fluctuation of the rupiah.
The government is preparing the government regulation in connection with the deposit interest tax incentive so that exporters would be willing to keep their foreign exchange income in the countrys banking system to safeguard the movement of the countrys currency exchange rate.
The interest cut facility is part of the second package of economic policies issued by the government besides reduction in the period of issuance of tax holiday and tax allowance permits and issuance of a government regulation on value added tax (PPN) for certain transport means and a government regulation on bonded logistic center.
Finance minister Bambang Brodjonegoro said the incentive was determined by adjusting the tax tarrif for deposit interests based on their term.
"If the US dollar deposit from export income is kept in the Indonesian bank for a month the tariff will be reduced from 20 percent to 10 percent. If the deposit is kept for three months the tax will be 7.5 percent and for six months 2.5 percent while for more than six months the tax will be zero percent," he said.
According to Bank Indonesia Regulation the foreign exchange income from exports that are kept in the domestic banking system have so far been taxed by 20 percent and it has been considered too high by exporters and therefore they have never held their foreign exchange income in Indonesia.(*)
Editor: Heru Purwanto
Copyright © ANTARA 2015
