Sharif noted that offshore savings were one of the obstacles faced by the law enforcement agencies not only in Indonesia but also across the world.
If the Panama Papers are used as evidence, cooperation must be established with foreign law enforcement agencies.
"The cooperation must be in the form of agency-to-agency engagements that are bilateral or multilateral," remarked Sharif.
Earlier, a Panama law firm Mossack Fonseca published its investigation result revealing documents that contained data relating to shadow companies in offshore tax havens, which were used to evade taxes.
The documents revealed how networks of corruption and tax crimes conducted by heads of states, secret agents, celebrities, and hidden fugitives were located in tax havens.
There are more than two thousand names of individuals and companies in Indonesia, as indicated in the document.
Indonesian Finance Minister Bambang Brodjonegoro ensured that the data held by the Directorate General of Taxation (DGT) to assess taxpayers assets abroad was not obtained from the Panama law firms investigation report.
Bambang said that the DGTs data was obtained from G20 countries official tax authorities, but the government might use the Panama Papers information as comparative data.
Meanwhile, Director of Counseling Services and Public Relations DGT Mekar Satria Utama stated that the information contained in the Panama Papers could be used as additional data to explore new potential tax evasions, if the validity of the data can be ascertained.
Mekar stated that during the tax investigation process, the Directorate general did not solely rely on data but also sought a confirmation from taxpayers related to their assets in order to secure more accurate information.
However, if during the clarification process, the taxpayer was unable to furnish information more clearly and did not want to rectify the data in the Annual Taxation Notice, then further examination could be initiated. (WDY)
