MoF‘s New Requirement May Hinder Promotions for Tax-Noncompliant ASN

JAKARTA, DDTCNews - The Ministry of Finance's (MoF) plan to make taxpayer status confirmation (konfirmasi status wajib pajak/KSWP in Indonesian) and tax clearance certificate (surat keterangan fiskal/SKF in Indonesian) a requirement for the promotion of civil servants (aparatur sipil negara/ASN in Indonesian) as well as members of the Indonesian National Armed Forces (Tentara Nasional Indonesia/TNI in Indonesian) and the Indonesian National Police (Kepolisian Republik Indonesian/Polri in Indonesian) has attracted public attention in the past week. This policy will be taken to encourage tax compliance among state servants.

Assistant to the Minister of Finance for Regulations and Law Enforcement Affairs, Iwan Djuniardi, said that the MoF is to cooperate with several ministries to apply taxpayer status confirmation in several personnel processes, including promotion and education. According to him, this measure is a nudging strategy or an approach aimed at improving tax compliance through certain policies.

"We are nudging through the application of the KSWP for, say, promotions, education and so forth. We also wish to incorporate tax subject matter into the government's and TNI/Polri's corporate university," said Iwan.

Director General of Taxes, Bimo Wijayanto, said that a tax clearance certificate would also become a requirement for grade or rank promotion. With this measure, civil servants and TNI/Polri members will be encouraged to fulfil their tax obligations pursuant to the applicable provisions.

"For promotions and echelon appointments, one will need to hold an SKF. It will not be possible to advance in grade or rank without having fulfilled one's tax obligations. It will later be launched by the relevant ministers, including the minister of finance," claimed Bimo.

On another note, taxpayer status confirmation is a process conducted by a government agency before providing certain public services to obtain details concerning a taxpayer's status. Through this process, the government ensures that taxpayers have fulfilled their tax obligations.

Through the taxpayer status confirmation, a taxpayer will receive a statement of their taxpayer status. That statement may carry either a valid or an invalid status. A taxpayer will receive a valid status if their name and tax identification number (TIN) match the data in the information system and the taxpayer has submitted their annual income tax return for the last 2 tax years.

A tax clearance certificate, on the other hand, is information provided by the Directorate General of Taxes (DGT) regarding a taxpayer's compliance over a specified period, to fulfil requirements for obtaining a service or in connection with the implementation of certain activities.

A tax clearance certificate is issued where a taxpayer has filed their annual tax return for the last two tax years, has no outstanding tax liability or has a tax liability but has been granted permission to defer or pay it in instalments and is not currently subject to proceedings for a tax crime.

In addition to the news surrounding the discourse on making taxpayer status confirmation and tax clearance certificate a requirement for promotion of civil servants and members of the Armed Forces/Police, a number of other tax issues have also garnered the attention of readers in the past week. These include the DGT's appeal to taxpayers deleting withholding receipts to amend their annual tax return and the government's strategies to pursue IDR500 trillion in revenue until the end of the year.

The following is the complete review of the tax-related articles.

DGT Reminds Taxpayers Deleting WHT Slips to Amend Annual Returns

The DGT has sent advisory emails to 475,698 taxpayers suspected of deleting withholding slips from their annual individual income tax returns for the 2025 tax year.

Through those advisory emails, taxpayers are encouraged to amend their 2025 annual tax returns. The deletion of withholding receipts may potentially result in the annual tax returns filed by individual taxpayers not reflecting actual conditions.

The DGT's findings indicate that 1.9 million individual taxpayers have deliberately deleted withholding receipts from the draft 2025 annual tax return. However, email blasts are only sent to individual taxpayers with non-final withholding receipts with valid status and have been reported by issuers with the deleted withholding receipts totalling no more than IDR100,000.

DGT’s Strategies in Pursuing IDR500 Trillion in Tax

Bimo stated that the DGT is implementing various policies and pursuing administrative measures to achieve the target set for this year. In the remaining 2 months, the DGT still needs to collect additional tax revenue of approximately IDR560 trillion.

"There are policies [on Article 22 Income Tax on] marketplaces, administrative penalty reductions, global minimum tax, SPP-TDLN. These are policies we are undertaking to optimise revenue through to year-end at the policy level," he claimed.

Tax revenues collected until October 2026 amounted to IDR1,796.8 trillion or 76.2% of the target of IDR2,357.7 trillion. Meanwhile, based on the outlook, tax revenues are projected to only reach IDR2,310.8 trillion or experience a shortfall of IDR46.9 trillion.

Down 38.71%, DGT Disburses IDR208.68 T Tax Refunds until October

The DGT has disbursed tax refunds of IDR208.68 trillion from January to October 2026. This figure decreased by 38.71% compared to the same period last year of IDR340.52 trillion.

Bimo said that the disbursement of tax refunds is prioritised for MSME entrepreneurs and labour-intensive industries. According to him, those business groups need cash flow support to maintain their business activities.

"The total refunds that have been disbursed until 31 October amount to IDR208.68 trillion. It is true that according to the direction, we prioritise accelerating the realisation of refunds for MSMEs and labour-intensive industries," he claimed.

PPS Participants Can Participate in Penalty Nullification

Taxpayers that under-disclose their assets in the voluntary disclosure programme (program pengungkapan sukarela/PPS in Indonesian) are allowed to apply for a reduction or nullification of administrative penalties pursuant to the Director General of Taxes Decree Number KEP-239/PJ/2026.

Bimo said the DGT allows applications for nullification of penalties, considering possible taxpayers’ negligence when participating in PPS and disclosing assets.

"The taxpayers may have been negligent at that time, because taxpayers usually do not assess their taxes themselves; there are usually intermediaries, consultants, attorneys or employees in the field of taxation, so maybe the recording is incomplete," said Bimo.

DGT–Singapore Collaborate to Address Transfer Pricing & Misinvoicing

Bimo revealed that the DGT and related agencies will strengthen cooperation with Singapore to address the issue of forest and land fires (kebakaran hutan dan lahan/karhutla in Indonesian), transfer pricing as well as underinvoicing.

He explained that the cooperation with Singapore will be coordinated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by involving DGT and related agencies. One of the collaborations to be established is the exchange of data to strengthen corporate compliance.

"We discussed the establishment of a Joint Task Force on Strengthening Business Responsibilities. This task force links information exchange, financial intelligence, cross-border evidence gathering as well as asset recovery efforts where possible," Bimo claimed. (dik)