e-Commerce Tax Rule Will Be Included in New Trade Law

Foto: Ist.

JAKARTA (IndoTelko) - Government and parliament have a plan to include e-commerce taxes in the new trade law.

"One thing that will be included in the new trade law is tax for every e-commerce transactions. So many people do online transactions but no tax are being paid. For example is Facebook advertising. Both the buyer and Facebook didn't pay any taxes for every transactions they had. This isn't fair," Trade Minister Gita Wirjawan said yesterday.

Gita said, currently, tax for online transactions made by domestic business, indviduals or entities are not specifically regulated.

"Through the new trade law, we will set clear regulations for taxes on online shop. How many is the amount? We will set it later," he said.

Also in the new regulation, Gita said, there will be some point which dedicated to protect local e-commerce business. The law will protect local e-commerce business from the invasion of foreign e-commerce business.

"We will protect local e-commerce so they will grow in their own land," he said.

Just a little note, government plan to set taxes for e-commerce business has been around since 2013. Unfortunately, the plan gain so many challenges from entrepreneurs. e-Commerce business itself has grow huge in Indonesia along with the growth of Indonesia's internet users.

There are currently 80 million domestic Internet users, a figure that is estimated to double in the next three years, according to the Indonesia Internet Association. With enormous room to expand, the country will undoubtedly become a lucrative market for e-commerce business.

E-commerce transactions are expected to see an annual growth of 40.2 percent to USD650 million from 2010 to 2015, according to an estimate by research firm Frost&Sullivan. (ak/ss)

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