Following Singapore’s willingness to cooperate with Indonesia’s tax authority, the government will move to create a bilateral tax agreement with the autonomous region of Macau “in a matter of days,” an official with the Directorate General of Taxes said on Thursday (13/07).
“We just need to match our scheduling,” Ken Dwijugiasteadi of the tax office told reporters, adding that the negotiation process between both governments is complete.
Macau, like Singapore, Hong Kong, Brunei, Switzerland, Panama and the United Arab Emirates, requires a separate bilateral competent authority to automatically exchange financial account information.
The tax office signed a similar bilateral agreement with Hong Kong’s commissioner of Inland Revenue Department on June 16 and with Switzerland on July 4, to provide those governments access to data for Indonesian taxpayers abroad.
Singapore’s Ministry of Finance released a statement on Wednesday, saying it is “ready to have an Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information relationship with Indonesia.
“This is in line with our consistent position for a level playing field with respect to other key financial centers,” the Singaporean statement read..
“We have been working closely together with our Indonesian counterparts to ensure that both parties can commence reciprocal exchange of information.”
Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said last week on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, that Hong Kong, Switzerland and Singapore requested an audience with the Indonesian government regarding taxation.
Singapore’s statement plays an important role as the island country is known as a tax haven for wealthy Indonesians.
According to the country’s latest tax amnesty program — which saw more than 900,000 taxpayers declare previously unreported assets — most previously unreported assets abroad were registered in Singapore, the Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Hong Kong and Australia.
