Indonesia through Global Forum Supports Tax Transparency Agenda

By: Editor

Sri Mulyani Indrawati, Finance Minister of the Republic of Indonesia, has the honor of being the government official to deliver a key-note speech at the virtual Plenary Meeting of the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes (Global Forum) on 17 November 2021.

The Global Forum is a leading international institution that focuses on the implementation of the global tax transparency and exchange of information standards. Currently, Global Forum has 163 member jurisdictions, including Indonesia and the other G20 countries, as well as 21 observers from international organizations. Suryo Utomo, Director General of Taxes, was one of the tax authority leaders who attended this year’s annual meeting. The meeting theme chosen was “Multilateral co-operation in tax matters: supporting a fair and inclusive recovery”, demonstrating the Global Forum’s view on the importance of multilateral cooperation and exchange of information for ensuring tax fairness and increasing domestic revenue.

In her key note address, Sri Mulyani underlined that the impact of international tax cooperation and collaboration on Indonesia is positively tremendous. A significant achievement was that Indonesia managed to end the bank secrecy regime for tax purposes with the Law Number 9 of 2017 concerning access information for tax purposes came into effect in 2017. Moreover, the capacity of the Directorate General of Taxes detect, supervise and tackle cross border tax avoidance and tax evasion has been significantly improved. The milestone has contributed to ensure that Indonesia was ready to commence reciprocal Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information (AEOI) in 2018.

Sri Mulyani also emphasized that the theme of the G20 Presidency of Indonesia, “Recover Together, Recover Stronger” acknowledges the inclusiveness and multilateral cooperation to enhance domestic revenue mobilization. This is particularly true as the severe impacts generated by the COVID-19 pandemic have resulted in enormous government spending.

In line with the policy, Indonesia supports the Global Forum’s plan to launch the Asia Initiative, a regional initiative that focuses on promoting tax transparency through EOI. The Asia Initiative is expected to take part in multilateral cooperation for tackling tax avoidance, tax evasion, and illicit financial flows. Regional co-operations such as the Asia Initiative will play an imperative role in promoting and accelerating the global tax transparency agenda, starting from the respective region.