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On 30 April 2019, facilitated by Company-Community Partnerships for Health Indonesia (CCPHI) and Knowledge Sector Initiative (KSI), EuroCham together with Indonesian Centre of Law and Policies Studies (PSHK) held a discussion on Legislation Process during the Government Transition Period. In this discussion, EuroCham shared on how the business sector views on government transition period and its implication to the business sector. Meanwhile, PSHK shared on current draft bills that are predicted to be issued by the government during the transition period post 2019 presidential election. Following the discussion, both EuroCham and PSHK were represented by their own Executive Director, Samuel Siahaan and M. Nur. Sholikin, in reaffirming commitment of both organizations to establish further collaboration by jointly signing an MoU.

Following a formal request to become part of the government’s Tax Reform Team, on 30 April 2019 EuroCham was invited to the kick off meeting. The Minister of Finance, Her Excellency Sri Mulyani provided a brief keynote to open the meeting and highlighted the important to maintain reform efforts within the Ministry of Finance by collaborating with various of stakeholders. This was later on followed by a presentation by Mr. Robert Pakpahan, the Director General of Tax, regarding progress updates and action plan from the Tax Reform Team. This plan includes the rearrangement and reclassification of Tax Main Office as well as its vertical units, enhancement of human resources, business process, data and information technology bases, as well as improvement of various regulatory frameworks.

The meeting also collected inputs from few representatives of advisors and observers, including EuroCham as the only foreign chamber in the meeting. As a spoke person of EuroCham in this meeting Mr. Prawira Atmadja, EuroCham Executive Board, shared general observations of member companies on the ongoing reform efforts as well as remaining challenges to simplify tax administrative burden such as in the process of tax payment and audit. The government should also apply tax schemes that would allow further growth in various industries, such as by providing incentives. Following the meeting, EuroCham also handed over the series of EuroCham Position Papers 2019 relevant to taxation to the Director General of Tax.