Jakarta (Antara Bali) - President Joko Widodo said the government is preparing draft laws on income tax, value added tax (VAT) and taxation general regulations (KUP).
The laws are expected to give Indonesia an edge in economic competition facing other ASEAN countries, Jokowi said.
"With the laws Indonesia could offer incentives to investors and draw funds into the country to shore up the economy," Jokowi told his audience when promoting the government's tax amnesty program here on Tuesday evening.
He said he hoped debates on the bills and other related to taxes could be wrapped up in 2017.
Jokowi said currently the House of Representatives is backing the government in its efforts to increase tax revenues as shown in with the endorsement of the tax amnesty law.
The government is busy in promoting the tax amnesty program in big cities all over the country.
From early July until now , the president and a number of his ministers already launched the promotional campaigns in five big cities - Jakarta, Surabaya, Medan, Bandung and Semarang.
Enthusiasm has been shown by business leaders when hearing the president outlining the tax amnesty program .
In Semarang on Tuesday , Jokowi sought to convince around 2,500 business leaders assembled at the Patra Jasa Hotel about the seriousness of the government with its tax amnesty policy.
He said implementation of tax amnesty could be through repatriation of funds from abroad into Indonesia or declaration of all assets owned by tax payers.
The president referred to repatriation of funds owned by many rich Indonesian parked abroad, and declaration of taxable assets not yet reported.
He said until Tuesday, the number of tax payers taking part in the tax amnesty program already reached 1,810 persons with Rp11.8 trillion to be repatriated.
The government hopes to earn Rp165 trillion in redemption and taxes from the program, which will be effective only until March 2017. (WDY)
