Why Taxman Act The Way They Are: Revealing The Myths

Oleh: Erikson Wijaya, the Directorate General of Taxes officer

A taxman is someone collecting tax. That is a simple definition ever borne in most people’s minds. If we try to look at a broader reference in favored sites, either Cambridge or Merriam-Webster Dictionary, there is no difference. They define a taxman as the department of the government that collects taxes. Let us visit the latter one and hit recent examples of the taxman in sentences. It presents us with one telling how the taxman is somebody everyone should avoid because he is watching their income, money, profit, and wealth. To prove it, the reader can go to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary online page and type ‘taxman’ before clicking the search. What is more, taxmen levy taxes, which is said they scrutinize every object to tax. Ultimately, it is understandable that those paradigms turn into a collective remembrance and are passed on to generations from ancient Rome to modern times.

Nevertheless, those phenomena are all about what. It shares common thoughts on what taxmen do, and unfortunately, it fails to explore another perspective on why they do it and act as they do. However, there is so much reward to be found in the why. It is undoubtedly not easy since our people and tradition haven’t valued the “why” for centuries proportionately. Moreover, that led us to the brink of extinction of comprehensive understanding. So, the goal of this passage is to shift the customs to prevent extinction from happening. Because misconceptions regarding the taxman’s job are ubiquitous, to deny this widespread understanding, we need to admit that society is not well-informed about at least these aspects, including taxability on an object and accessibility and security issues.

Discussing the taxability of an object is to acknowledge that any taxman around the world works by the book and complies with any rule stated in the code of conduct so that any object they pay attention to is one with the possibility of being taxed. But only sometimes. It depends on its taxability affected by regulations. Taxmen cannot apply tax on untaxable things or those falling into the tax-exempt category. Any tax deployed to both of them is subject to dispute. The review procedure is a must-faced step by taxman before calculating and stipulating tax to taxpayers. It means the amount of tax billed to them has been through layers of discussion and decision till it is informed and sent officially.

At the same time, understanding accessibility and security issues is to know that when tax inspectors hunt tax objects, they will never be able to cross the line. Except the state allows them to do so. Tax rules are not a stand-alone regulation; they are a part of completing a big picture of public policy, including many regulations from various fields like banking, finance, trading, and industry. Accessing objects fenced by those regulations means passing through complex and subtle legal procedures. Either data or information earned illegally by taxmen is risky to be used and suable when reported by taxpayers. This ensures that any substance mentioned in a tax notice a taxman issue is legal and not secretive.

By elaborating on those issues, taxpayers should be confident of what the taxman is doing to them or any information about their assets and wealth. Tax inspectors do their job to convince that those objects are already taxed or to prove that they are not subject to tax and reported in taxpayers’ annual tax returns. They have to go deeply into hunting tax objects solely to maintain their compliance with the various rules surrounding their job. So, taxing their findings is already aligned with what the rules say. The regulation provides tax inspectors with guidance and prohibition to hunt and look for more objects to tax. However, to prove it, tax inspectors have no choice but to seek them and do the review.

*) This article represents the author's personal views and does not represent the stance of the institution. 

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