"The government is evaluating the receipts in a realistic fashion," Darmin stated.
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The government is recalculating its 2016 tax receipt projections in the light of more realistic understanding of the present economic conditions, Chief Economic Minister Darmin Nasution said.

"The government is evaluating the receipts in a realistic fashion," Darmin stated after attending a coordination meeting of the Regional Inflation Control Team (TPID) in Jakarta on Thursday.

Once receipt projections are arrived at, the government can make many adjustments in the expenditure of ministries and state institutions in order to deal with the budget deficit in a more efficient manner.

"We will see which expenditure heads are really a priority and must be undertaken and which ones are not a priority and can be reduced, such as money spent on official trips," he explained.

While recalculating tax revenue projections, the government will maintain the revenue target from the tax amnesty program at Rp165 trillion.

"We will maintain that figure and have the intention to make all out efforts to achieve that target," he assured.

National Development Planning Miniser/Head of the National Development Board (Bappenas) Bambang Brodjonegoro noted that the government will focus on reducing that part of the budget expenditure that has never been absorbed fully in the past.

"The point is that we will look at the budget expenditure which is not absorbed. So, we will look at unspent budget. Last year, about 10 percent of the budget remained unspent. We will see the sections where the budget was not used and will directly cut it," the Bappenas stressed.

Earlier, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati projected that the tax revenue will decline by Rp219 trillion from the Revised 2016 State Budget (APBNP), this could potentially disturb the budget deficit situation.

To deal with such a scenario, Sri Mulyani is proposing an efficiency drive to cut the ministries' expenditures by Rp65 trillion and the regional fund transfer by Rp68 trillion.

"We, Bappenas and the office of the Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs will assess which expenditure head could be reduced without disturbing priority expenditures," she observed.(*)

Editor: Heru Purwanto
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