Indonesia’s Directorate General of Taxation welcomed the South Jakarta District Court’s rejection on Tuesday of a bid by PT Kaltim Prima Coal to prevent a tax-evasion case against it from going to trial, saying the decision would speed up its investigation into the Bakrie group company.
“With this verdict, our investigation should proceed much faster,” said Pontas Pane, interim director of intelligence and investigation at the directorate.
“We were distracted by the pre-trial [motion].”
The court’s verdict came just a day after President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono issued a directive to the National Police to pursue anyone suspected of tax evasion. Political analysts interpreted the directive to be a warning to Golkar Party chairman Aburizal Bakrie over the House of Representatives’ investigation of the Bank Century bailout.
KPC is a subsidiary of the politically connected Bakrie group’s PT Bumi Resources. Bumi and PT Arutmin Indonesia, another Bumi subsidiary, are also under scrutiny for allegedly evading a combined Rp 2.1 trillion ($225 million) in taxes from the 2007 tax year.
The Directorate General of Taxation has claimed that KPC underpaid its taxes by Rp 1.5 trillion, while Bumi and Arutmin underpaid by a combined Rp 600 billion. The office claimed the companies filed incorrect tax declarations in 2007.
