CITAX Headline

Gov’t Asked to Create Healthy Competition in the Tobacco Industry

JAKARTA, NETRALNEWS.COM – The government is asked to create healthy business competition in the industrial sector, especially in large and small cigarette manufacturing segment. A number of parties assess that unfair competition still occurs between large and small cigarette manufacturers.

Currently, there is a large manufacturer that utilizes a complicated cigarette excise structure gap so that it only pays the duty at a lower rate.

Yustinus Prastowo, Executive Director of the Center for Indonesia Taxation Analysis (CITA), said the unclear basis on the distinction of large and small tobacco manufacturers further complicated the tobacco excise tariff system.

A complicated administration will complicate supervision and compliance, and open loopholes for violations because of the different tariffs among the groups.

“This causes the country to suffer from revenue losses.The government should be more observant.This is important for protecting small manufacturers.For example, there is currently a large cigarette manufacturer who paid a machine-rolled cigarette tax with low tariffs. I think this is already wrong, ” Yustinus said in Jakarta on Saturday (8/12/2017).

He cited today, excise tariff for machine-rolled cigarettes consists of not layers, where the top tariff and bottom layer has a large gap. As a result, large capital manufacturers use it.

According to him, the manufacturer classification should not be of the type of cigarette made but from the scale or volume of the company’s production. If the company already produces machine-rolled clove cigarettes and is charged the highest tariff, they should also pay the highest duty on the machine-rolled cigarette type or vice versa.

“I think the base should be fairness, the rules should be fair, fair for business actors, and should not be discriminatory,” he continued.

Meanwhile, Amir Uskara, a member of the Budget Board of the House of Representatives, added that this practice is ironic because it occurred when the government raised cigarette taxes by 10.5 percent in early 2017, in the hope that additional funds could be used to finance government programs.

“The country is in desperate need of acceptance nowadays, with the circumstances in which large tobacco companies pay the excise taxes that are destined for small manufacturers, is certainly very detrimental to the state. Business competition must be fair. A large company should pay the appropriate tariffs for its class,” he said.

Sumber: Netralnews.com, 13 Agustus 2017

Komentar Anda