Tax Amnesties in Indonesia and Other Countries: Opportunities and Challenges

Recently, revenue of national budget from taxes has decreased since economic deceleration happened and many capitals and assets of Indonesian people were stationed overseas. In order to encourage the economic growth, the government establishes regulations on tax amnesty.This paper primarily aims to find out the implementation of tax amnesty in Indonesia which had run three times since 1964, 1984, and 2016; and to compare it with similar program implemented by several countries such as South Africa, India, and Italy. Tax amnesty program in 1964 and 1984 was considered unsuccessful due to the political condition at that moment and the government indifference to socialize this matter to the taxpayers. However, it differs from South Africa, India, and Italy which are considered successful in implementing the tax amnesty program, because it brings good impact on their national revenue and increased the obedience of the taxpayers. In order to reach the objectives of the tax amnesty program in 2016, Indonesia government needs to revise the regulations of taxation, prepare the human resource of tax officers, to prepare information system related to the data of taxpayers, to improve the coordination of public agencies from Financial Service Authority and Indonesian Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (INTRAC) and to enforce the regulation after the enactment of tax amnesty.