Indonesia To Place Tax Officers In Overseas Embassies

by Mary Swire, Tax-News.com, Hong Kong

24 August 2010

As part of the government’s drive to increase budgetary revenue, its Tax Director General, Mochammad Tjiptardjo, has disclosed a plan to place tax officials in Indonesia’s embassies in selected countries.

Tjiptardjo has to raise tax collections significantly next year to meet the budgetary targets. Tax revenue is forecast to increase by 13% in 2011, and that will have to be achieved mainly through tax administration measures and action against tax evaders.

As part of the latter, he has disclosed that his office and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have been talking about the possibility of putting tax officials, in 2011, into Indonesia’s embassies abroad. The objective would be to increase revenue from Indonesian taxpayers with assets or operations abroad, through the means of increased international cooperation and tax information exchange between tax agencies.

Tjiptardjo has disclosed that 15 officials are already undergoing training to be ready for their assignments. The countries in which those tax intelligence officers will be placed have not yet been announced, but Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, the United States, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom have previously been mentioned.

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