Indonesia's tax revenue rises 15% over tax amnesty: official

Indonesia's tax revenue rose by 15 percent by the end of September compared to the same period last year thanks to the successful results of government's tax amnesty program in the first period, a senior official at the financial ministry said here on Tuesday.

Government collected 791.9 trillion rupiah (around 61 billion U.S. dollars) in total tax revenue by the end of last month, or 15.5 percent higher from 687.7 trillion rupiah (about 52.9 billion U.S. dollars) recorded in the same period a year earlier, according to the data released by Indonesia's financial ministry.

Taxation Director General at the ministry Ken Dwijugiastead said the first period of the tax amnesty program which ran from July to September contributed to the significant increase of tax collection.

"We're going to continue with our efforts to collect more," he said here.

The second period of the program was scheduled to end at the end of this year. The last period was scheduled to last till March 31, 2017.

As of September, the government earned 97.2 trillion rupiah (about 7.4 billion U.S. dollars) in additional tax revenue, including from tax amnesty penalty funds, according to the ministry's taxation office.

Some 368,000 taxpayers were reported to have declared 3,625 trillion rupiah (about 278.7 billion U.S. dollars) of their unreported assets during the first period tax amnesty program and paid up 93.8 trillion rupiah (about 7.2 billion U.S. dollars) in tax amnesty penalty funds.

Source : XINHUA