The comprehensive study conducted by Perkumpulan Prakarsa research organization, as quoted on the opinion page of this newspaper on Feb. 20, is yet another illustration of the urgent need for the government to implement electronic invoicing in Indonesia’s international trade.
By comparing United Nations Comtrade data on Indonesia’s imports and exports, as reported by Statistics Indonesia, with the same data reported by our trading partners, huge discrepancies have been revealed in just two commodities alone: fish and coal. By calculating the loss that these discrepancies have caused for value added tax (VAT), royalties and income taxes it has been shown that Indonesia lost a total of US$5.6 billion of tax revenue during the period 2012-2022, of which $3.8 billion was due to unpaid royalties on coal exports.
Source: www.thejakartapost.com
