JAKARTA – Indonesia’s tax authority will scrutinise taxpayers named in the data leaked from a Panamanian law firm as part of efforts to chase their offshore undeclared assets, the country’s finance minister said on Tuesday.
“I have told the tax office to study the data in the Panama Papers,” Finance Minister Bambang Brodjonegoro told reporters. “We will confirm the data that we have now with the documents or use them complementarily,” he added.
The tax office already has a separate set of data about”paper companies” Indonesians have set up in tax haven countries from different sources, Brodjonegoro said, adding that authorities have started to review them.
AFP, Reuters, The Star/ANN
On Tuesday, Brodjonegoro reiterated he hopes a tax amnesty plan will dissuade companies from tax treaty shopping. The amnesty, which offers hefty tax discounts to individuals and companies who declare concealed untaxed wealth, would allow special purpose vehicles to declare or repatriate money stashed overseas.
State revenue in resource-rich Indonesia is expected to miss its 2016 target by 250 trillion rupiah (S$25.6 billion), based on official forecasts, as commodity prices remain low. Brodjonegoro has said extra revenue from the amnesty plan can cover some of the shortfall.
The parliament will begin debating the tax amnesty bill this month.
