March 14, 2025 | 12:01 am
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati presented the realization of the state budget (APBN) in the first two months of 2025 today. During the approximately 3-hour press conference, the Ministry of Finance completely avoided addressing the impact of the Coretax system on state revenue at the beginning of this year.
One highlight of the APBN KiTa (performance and facts) presentation by Sri Mulyani is the 30.19 percent drop in tax revenue from Rp269.02 trillion last year to Rp187.8 trillion per February 2025.
In response, Andalas University's Department of Economics Lecturer, Syafruddin Karimi, suggested the ministry address the problem within the country’s new tax system. “Coretax should be acknowledged as the main factor for the tax revenue slowdown,” he said when contacted on Thursday, March 13, 2025.
The ministry claimed the decline is normal, citing the tax revenue pattern, which saw growth in December followed by a two-month drop in January and February. The government attributed the decline to a lagging in commodity prices.
However, Syafruddin believed that the ministry overlooks two contributing factors to the dropping tax revenue: the problematic Coretax implementation and the sluggish business ecosystem. He said the Ministry of Finance oversimplified the fiscal issues faced by the government.
"If commodity prices are the sole cause, the impact will be seen only in mining and plantation taxes,” said Syafruddin.
However, according to data from the February 2025 edition of APBN KiTa briefly published by the Ministry of Finance, domestic value-added tax (VAT) in January 2025 amounted to Rp2.58 trillion, plummeting from the same period last year with Rp35.6 trillion.
The existing data betrayed the purpose of Coretax, which was to improve tax efficiency in Indonesia. Bumpy transition of the tax system has resulted in technical difficulties during taxpayer reports. "The tax revenue that should have entered on time experienced delays, causing the state budget deficit to worsen," said Syafruddin
Additionally, according to him, the pressured business ecosystem also contributes to the weak tax revenue. Therefore, Sri Mulyani should not only blame commodity prices as the cause of the plummeting tax revenue, but also acknowledge that tax policies and domestic economic conditions both play a role in weakening state revenue.
"Without a comprehensive evaluation of the implementation of Coretax and business recovery strategies, the state budget deficit will keep getting harder to control in the long run," he said.
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