E-commerce tax must be deducted in payment gateway
While the government is preparing an income tax bill, an expert has suggested that the taxes from e-commerce activities should be deducted at the payment gateway to assure fairness for both the government and businesspeople.
In the current bill, which is being discussed by the government, e-commerce transactions must be reported so that the government can calculate the amount of tax that should be paid from the transactions.
However, Center for Indonesia Taxation Analysis (CITA) executive director Yustinus Prastowo said on Thursday the government could not collect taxes based on the transactions that had been made because not all transactions ended with payment.
"We should apply the Korean system, where the authority collects the taxes in the payment gateway because e-commerce transactions are paid through online systems," Yustinus said at a seminar on taxation in Jakarta on Thursday.
Under Director General of Taxation Regulation No. SE-62/PJ/2013, the government collects income tax and value added tax (VAT) from four kinds of e-commerce: online marketplace, classified ads, daily deals and online retail.
According to the regulation, the taxes for online marketplaces and daily deals are collected from the places sellers sell their goods and from the transactions between buyers and sellers. Meanwhile, for classified ads, the taxes are collected from the places producers promote their products and for online retail the taxes are collected per the transaction between buyer and seller.