A Court officer receiving evidentiary documents from the Petitioner right before a judicial review hearing of the State Ministry Law, Monday (1/15/2024). Photo by MKRI/Ilham W.M.

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JAKARTA (MKRI) — Tax consultant Sangap Tua Ritonga attended another material judicial review hearing of Law No. 39 of 2008 on State Ministries in the Constitutional Court (MK). In petition No. 155/PUU-XXI/2023, he challenges Articles 5 and 15 of State Ministry Law.

At one of the Court’s panel courtrooms, he conveyed the revisions to the petition, including the elaboration of his legal standing, his argument of constitutional loss due to the norms being challenged, and his subject matters relating to the placement of the Directorate-General of Taxation (DGT) under the Ministry of Finance.

“The [placement] does not fulfil the principles of benefit and effectiveness. In addition, [I] have revised [my argument] on the establishment of the taxation authority agency. In this case, management of taxes must be effective and integrated, and this is elaborated in this revision,” the Petitioner said on Monday, January 15, 2024 before Constitutional Justices Enny Nurbaningsih (chair), Arief Hidayat, and Anwar Usman.

Also read: Court Asked to Separate DGT from Ministry of Finance

At the preliminary hearing on Tuesday, December 12, 2023, the Petitioner revealed that the DGT had disseminated the Ministry of Finance’s slogan “SATU” since 2022. This has created legal uncertainty as a result of the overlap of financial and tax nomenclatures. He believes that such a nomenclature overlap will result in the overlap of all aspects, including organization, human resources, information technology (IT) systems, and many other operational factors.

He argued that it had impacted his interaction in providing client services. He explained that the integrated functions of treasury, tax policymakers, and tax administration will undoubtedly be realized in the state budget each year. In reality, however, this will result in an increased tax target that is not based on potential increase based on prospective undeclared tax gap. Because of the state budget’s ever-increasing needs, taxpayers will be forced to increase their tax contributions indefinitely. Whereas the Petitioner, as an authorized consultant, frequently instructs customers to pay taxes on a self-assessment basis honestly and openly according to their real tax potential gap.

He also contended that the DGT should be separated from the Ministry of Finance so that, in general, the institutional governance of the DGT as an autonomous institution can reduce the Ministry of Finance’s excessive authority because there is a separation of state revenue and state treasury authority. Furthermore, this separation can promote accountability and monitoring, and prevent potential conflicts of interest. As a result, in the petition, he asked the Constitutional Court to rule that Article 5 paragraph (2) of the State Ministry Law unconstitutional since it does not include the word “tax” as a separate nomenclature from the nomenclature of “finance.” Then, based on Article 17 paragraph (3) of the 1945 Constitution, which does not explicitly limit the number of ministries, the Petitioner asked the Court to declare Article 15 of the a quo Law unconstitutional.

Author       : Sri Pujianti
Editor        : Lulu Anjarsari P.
PR            : Raisa Ayuditha
Translator  : Yuniar Widiastuti (NL)

Disclaimer: The original version of the news is in Indonesian. In case of any differences between the English and the Indonesian versions, the Indonesian version will prevail.

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