"The program is self assessment in nature . We are only offering the tax payers to take the opportunity," Taxation Director General Ken Dwijugiasteadi said.
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Taxation Director General Ken Dwijugiasteadi called on all tax payers to be involved voluntarily in the tax amnesty program.

"The program is self assessment in nature . We are only offering the tax payers to take the opportunity," Kens aid here on Thursday night.

The government has passed into law tax amnesty bill hoping to prompt repatriation of big funds parked abroad by rich Indonesians.

The government hopes to gain from the policy with revenue in redemption and the capital repatriation would help improve the countrys liquidity and solve problem in state budget deficit this year.

The tax amnesty policy is effective for only nine months until March 2017.

Ken said his office has records of all assets of Indonesian abroad and the tax payers have not fully paid their tax obligation on the asset.

He said his office could only offer the tax payers to take opportunity of the tax amnesty policy voluntarily as the program is not part of law enforcement.

However, after the nine months period, there would be law enforcement against those committing tax evasion, he said.

"After that no more appeal but law enforcement would be taken based on data we already have. We would like to tell them they should take the opportunity," he warned.

He said if later (after the nine month period) there were assets not properly reported, the assets would be seen as additional income and income tax would be imposed with penalty of 200 percent.

Therefore, he suggested that the tax payers recalculate the value of their assets taking the opportunity of tax amnesty until March 31, 2017.

He said "we are all responsible for making the tax amnesty policy a success as the program would greatly benefit the country in economy.

"If the program is successful, it is our success and if it failed it is also our failure," he said.

He said the policy could contribute up to Rp165 trillion to the countrys tax revenues as a result of capital repatriation of around Rp2,000 trillion and declaration of assets of Rp4,000 trillion by the tax payers abroad.

The policy has triggered controversy with some calling it against the state constitution , but most observer and experts were in favior of the policy.

Only one of the 10 factions in the House of Representatives rejecting the policy, which was endorsed by the House in a plenary session earlier this week.(*)

Editor: Heru Purwanto
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