Tax is a fee that every individual, property owner, firms have to pay in
order to support the government. There
are many kinds of tax such as income tax, sales tax, property tax, toll tariffs,
custom tax, import tax, alcohol drink tax, and service tax. Tax is not a
voluntary donation to the government, but every person enforced to pay the tax.
Taxes can be used to public service such as infrastructure development, fuel
subsidy, education subsidy, national defense, etc.Some of us should have an
experience about paying tax. One of the simplest examples is PPN. If we go to a
fast food restaurant, the price that we pay must be 10% higher than the price
that listed on the menu. It’s because every food or beverages that we ordered
were charged 10% for PPN or Pajak Pertambahan Nilai. Tax has an important part
in economy. With taxes, government can build a better infrastructure and public
facilitiesthat can improve our economics activities. For the example, government
use taxes to build a bridge that connects two regions. People inside these two
regions can interact and do economic activities that can increase the economic
growth for the country. Government also uses the tax money to buy weapons and arsenals
to protect the country from any threats for the good of the people. So there is
an indirect reciprocity between citizen and the government.
Income tax is a tax that charged on the income of individuals,
companies, firms, or other legal entities.There are many ways to set the amount
of Income tax. There are Official Assessment system and Self-Assessment System.
Official Assessment System means that the amount of tax is set by the
government’s policy. And the other side
is Self-Assessment System.
Self-Assessment System differs to Official Assessment System. It gives
taxpayer the authority to count the amount of tax by themselves. But there are
major weaknesses of Self-Assessment System. Because not every Indonesian people
or firms want to pay tax and they tend to seek a way to not pay tax such as tax
evasion. Because the tax system in Indonesia is Self-Assessment system, many
firms in Indonesia try to falsify their financial reports, hiding any real
transactions.So the firm can pay less income tax or maybe possibly the firm
didn’t have to pay any income tax.
One of the famous tax cases is known as “tax mafia” which is done by
Gayus Tambunan. Gayus is the one who did
many of the tax evasion activities inside tax office. His position in
Directorate General of Taxes in Indonesia as a reviewer’s objection staff makes
him easier to do any “tax evasion” activity for his client. He utilizes the
weakness spot of the self-assessment system by making a tax consultant to
falsify his client’s financial reports. Corruption is also one of the problems
that often happened in tax offices. Money that people pay weren’t used to do
any public service. Otherwise the officers inside the tax office took the tax
money and use it for themselves. One of the examples is BOS or known as Biaya
Operasional Sekolah (School Operating Cost). BOS use to be some kind of
educational subsidy from government that giving free education fee for
elementary and junior high school. But practically BOS many times being
corrupted and the people didn’t felt the benefit from that educational subsidy.
The effect of this condition to economics is of course affecting the growth
of Indonesian economic. Tax evasion will affect the competition between
companies. The company that didn’t pay the taxes will get more profit than the
company who pay taxes even with the same business and productivity. Tax evasion
also causes a stagnation growth of economy. If the company didn’t pay tax, the
company won’t have to increase the production. Otherwise they will do the tax
evasion to get more profit. Corruption inside the tax office also makes the
condition of the economic is even worse. The tax money that the people pay was
used for their own accord instead of public service. Then the result is broken
bridge, damaged public schools, non-functioning public facilities, broken roads
everywhere even in the big cities because lacks of maintenance. The increase of
educational cost because of the corrupted educational subsidy makes the poor
people hard to get an education. This condition will increase the level of
poverty. The public facilities such as roads or bridges will disturb the
economic activity. People who want to go to certain location will obstructed by
the broken roads. It will make the transportation process even longer and
inefficient.
As a citizen, we must do something to overcome this condition. The steps
that society must do to overcome the weaknesses and the effects of this
condition is people have to concern about the condition if somebody doesn’t pay
tax. People have to realize that he/she is living in a nation which ruled by
the government. The land and building that people used to live and stay is not
entirely belong to the people themselves. If people pay the taxes, the
government can get more income. So then they can use it for many public
services. After that, he/she can register to Tax Service Office (Kantor
Pelayanan Pajak) to get a “taxpayer number” in Indonesia we called them NPWP or
Nomor Pokok Wajib Pajak. And then, people have to pay taxes frequently. Not
just for one or two months. People who pay taxes also get a pride for themself.
He/she already showed that he/she contributed to the government in efforts to
increase the economic condition. The people doesn’t have to worry about the tax
will affect his/her economic condition because there is a regulation about
setting the amount of tax. Tax should not affect the economic condition and
slowing down the public efforts to pay the taxes.
The government also must do something to overcome this condition. The
things that government must do are tax socialization. With tax socialization,
we hope that more people will concerned about paying the tax. Nowadays,
government already done many things to socialize tax such as commercial break
on TV, billboards, etc. but I think it’s not enough to make people concerned
about tax. If the effort to make people concerned about tax fails, I think
government has to change the tax system from self-assessment system into the
official assessment system. Therefore there will be no more tax evasion because
the amount of tax is set by the government. All the citizen has to do is just
pay the tax and everything will be much simpler. In order to set the amount of
tax, the government also needs regulations that won’t affect the economic
condition of individuals and firms.The next thing that government must do is to
clean any corruption inside the tax office. If there’s no corruption, the
public service will be even better and make our economic condition better. The
broken roads will be fixed. The infrastructure and public facilities will be
maintained properly. Poor people can get an educational subsidy from BOS and
get a proper education. I think that’s all about my
opinion about taxes and economics in Indonesia. I hope you get useful
information from this essay.
Source list:
Writer :
Name : Rafael Martin
Npm : 120110120029
Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/Sgt.Makarov
Name : Rafael Martin
Npm : 120110120029
Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/Sgt.Makarov
10 comments:
it requires a more intense socialization. especially the role of government is lacking, even though most of the state budget comes from taxes.
otherwise it expects public awareness that people living on government land will likely be difficult, because the land system was not running up maximum in the country.
err..i think you should add more resources other than wikipedia. more valid resources.
oh and, I think the essential is it's so hard to make people aware of their obligation to pay tax because they have no trust what will the government will do with their tax. especially for public service institutions. it's well known among Indonesian people that public service officers are lacking work ethics and self responsible.
i know it is maybe not an absolute conditions, but I think the best solution for the government is always let the people know the progress of their tax investments by using mass media | Aryo Prionggo 210110070312.
i think our society has not been able to adapt with Self-Assessment System because some people might use it for wrong intention, then I think we better use Official Assessment System, of course with other considerations that doesn't detrimental to the public
hmmm... I think all people should use the official assasment system so there will be no tax evasion
I think our nation won't be able to use the self assessment system until they realized that the tax it self will go back to them in public facilities. And the other thing is the employee of Directorate of taxes system must not help companies who want to use the tax evasion system so the money will go directly to the government. Thanks
I think changing our income tax with Official Assessment System doesn't give significant improvement to our country if corruption is still being done by the governments and the tax staffs. I agree that Self Assessment System has a risk of data manipulation done by the taxpayer, but if we use Official Assessment System, amount of corruption will be higher because the tax is increased.
So, it is much more better to fight against corruption first.
The problem is, a lot of corrupt government people that "playing" with our tax, manipulate them so they can use the money from the tax. I think we should find more competent people to maintain tax in Indonesia.
I think there is no problem about the system, people is the problem, the moral hazard one, there's too many corrupt officers in tax directorate. The solution is simple, strict law enforcement, strict control and tranparency, for example severe punishment for gayus could be make others officer scared to corrupt anymore. same point for the bribers, the person or firm who did that will also get severe punishment no matter who are they. If this happen, it would gain trust for the people, and they would pay the tax with pleasure and without afraid of their tax "dissapeared".
Although there is no tax evasion, we got greater problems : there so much corruption in the government itself.. The tax money is not used for the prosperity of the people, but for the pleasure of the officials... Unnecessary trips ( Studi Banding ), fictitious project, etc etc.. mark ups in projects.. These things makes the officials become more and more rich and greedy...
The Government uses out taxes just for their Self-Purpose, no wonder why we doubtfully paying tax. Iit's quite difficult if we want to fix this problem unless the Government realized & starts to care about spending our taxes wisely...
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