Ahmad Fuad Rahmani.
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The Directorate General of Taxes plans to conduct a national census as part of its pro-active extension program to increase tax collection.
"We are ready to carry it out for three months from October to December," director general of taxes, Ahmad Fuad Rahmany, said here on Friday.
He said the census was part of the office`s efforts to collect data on taxpayers and see their compliance in order to widen the taxation base.
He said the self-assessment system carried out so far was not yet effective enough to make people pay their taxes out of their own accord.
He hoped with the census to be carried out by 299 prime tax offices the number of tax bases would increase. He said around 3,000 tax officers would be sent to potential tax payers` residences or offices to ascertain the fulfillment of their fiscal obligations.
"We will this time be more pro-active and this activity will be followed by counseling to appeal potential tax payers to report and pay their taxes," he said.
He said the census would last from the end of September 2011 to the end of 2012 with the target for the first three months of reaching around 1.5 million tax payers.
"Hopefully the number may be higher below two millions. This is based upon our initial calculation," he said.
Fuad said based on the number of tax files in 2010 only 8.5 million tax payers out of an estimate of 110 million working people had paid their personal tax.
The number includes around 25 to 30 million people paying based upon Article 21 (PPh 21) of the tax law on personal tax.
"The ratio to the number of active working people has reached only 7.73 percent. In other words it means the rate of compliance is still low," he said.
He said the number of corporate tax files meanwhile was only recorded at 466,000 out of 12.9 million active companies with permanent domiciles.
Fuad hoped the census would bring a benefit namely increasing the number of tax payers.
"This is our first program. So we will first see its success rate. We will see its shortcomings or obstacles," he said.
He said it was possible for his office to conduct cooperation with regional governments in data collection of potential tax payers with regard to the census.
He hoped the effort would increase the target of tax revenue which is always increased every year.
