As we approached the second semester of the year,[1] the House of Representatives passed a bill which was recently signed and numbered by the President before finally coming into force as Law No. 11 of 2016 on Tax Amnesty (“Tax Amnesty Law”).[2] Under the auspices of the tax-amnesty program, both individuals and corporate taxpayers may receive pardons for any tax liabilities which may arise relating to outstanding payable tax, provided that they disclose their assets and also pay certain ransom fees. It should be stressed though that the Tax-Amnesty program is only set to run until 31 March 2017. Details of the Tax-Amnesty Program, as set out by the Tax-Amnesty Law, were discussed in a previous edition of Indonesian Law Digest (ILD) titled: “Tax Amnesty Law: From Sin Springs Hope Eternal”.
 
The target set by the government as regards the Tax-Amnesty Program is considered to be an ambitious one, and it is hoped that IDR 165 trillion can be generated through the payment of ransom fees, while IDR 1000 trillion derived from assets will hopefully be transferred to Indonesia from overseas (in the form of repatriated assets).[3] As of 4 August 2016, the total assets already declared stood at IDR 4.8 trillion worth of domestic assets and IDR 804 billion worth of overseas assets. Moreover, the total state revenue generated by ransom fees has already reached IDR 135 billion. Meanwhile, the total declared repatriated assets stood at IDR 627 billion.[4] In other words then, the current state of play still falls far short of the total targeted revenue.
 
Nevertheless, the Tax-Amnesty program has actually inspired great enthusiasm among taxpayers since its enforcement. This is evidenced in the heavy traffic seen by tax-office call centers and customer-service sections, most of which has been from citizens asking for further explanations as to how this strategy is to be implemented. Moreover, in order to accelerate the effective implementation of the Tax-Amnesty Program, several technical regulations have already been issued by related government or regulatory institutions. To start with, the Minister of Finance (“Minister”), as the organizer of the Tax-Amnesty Program, has already issued: