AEC Feed

At least 2,000 foreign companies in Indonesia have been avoiding trillions of rupiah in tax for the past 10 years by claiming that their companies were running at a loss, Finance Minister Bambang Brodjonegoro has reported.
He said each company should have paid a minimum average of 75 billion rupiah in tax liabilities per year. In total they have caused at least 100 trillion rupiah (Bt266 billion) in state losses.
“Thus in the last 10 years we’ve lost 100 trillion rupiah just from those 2,000 foreign corporate taxpayers that haven’t complied with the rules. This is a form of tax fraud that needs to be resolved,” Bambang said at the Presidential Palace, as quoted by setkab.go.id.
As for individual taxpayers, he continued, their tax obedience was also quite low. There were only 900,000 taxpayers, out of 5 million holders of tax identification numbers with two or three sources of income, who last year paid personal income tax, a total of 9 trillion |rupiah.
“It is less than 1 per cent of last year’s non-oil-and-gas tax-revenue target of 1 quadrillion rupiah,” Bambang said.
The government will encourage the tax office and Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre to cooperate in listing taxpayer data, as well as integrating information-technology infrastructure between the two institutions.
The measures are in accordance with President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s instruction to increase the tax ratio. – The Jakarta Post

Group Lease moves
into Indonesia

SET-listed digital financial firm Group Lease is injecting US$8 million (roughly Bt280 million) into its subsidiary in Indonesia as the final preparations are made for kicking off business in that country.
Coming after successful operations in Cambodia and Laos, the latest move into Indonesia coincides with a major corporate restructuring to streamline management and operational efficiency as the GL group grows bigger and continues its aggressive expansion into Asean markets and beyond, it said.
The corporate restructuring saw the establishment of a new executive board that will supervise all operations in Thailand and overseas and the appointment of new directors, including a US financial expert, to chart growth strategies as the group pushes ahead to expand internationally.

AXA Philippines’
income up 25%

The Philippine arm of French insurance giant AXA said its total premium income rose by 25 per cent to 22.9 billion pesos (Bt17.4 billion) last year on the back of “strong growth across all product lines and distribution channels”.
In a statement, AXA Philippines noted that the 25-per-cent growth in total premium income from 18.4 billion pesos in 2014 was faster than the 19-per-cent expansion posted by the entire insurance industry.
The joint venture between AXA and the Metrobank Group added that it improved its market share to 12.1 per cent in 2015 from 11.6 per cent a year earlier. AXA Philippines attributed the growth in the bancassurance business to “strong market growth in the first six months of single-premium investment products”. – Philippine Daily Inquirer

Pepsi sets up
second Thai plant

Pepsi-Cola (Thai) Trading Co Ltd, the local arm of PepsiCo Inc, is setting up a second beverage plant in Thailand, this one in Nong Khae Industrial Estate, Saraburi province.
PepsiCo’s investment in the manufacturing plant aims to strengthen its growing beverage business in Thailand and support long-term portfolio expansion and diversification, doubling the capacity of its first plant in Rayong province.
The first phase of the new plant, equipped with two production lines, will increase PepsiCo’s maximum beverage production capacity by 30 per cent, said Jagrut Kotecha, general manager for beverages.
“We will continue investing to advance the company’s sustainable business platform,” he said.