General Lecture: Taxation Outlook in 2014

Education and knowledge sharing have long been a part of DDTC’s organizational culture. Tax education provided are diverse, one of which is holding a general lecture regarding “Taxation Outlook 2014” at FISIP University of Indonesia’s Auditorium Building M, Depok. This event was a part of UI’s 64^th Dies Natalis series of events resulted from the collaboration between DDTC with the Faculty of Administration FISIP UI’s Regular and Non Regular Bachelor Program and KOSTAF UI.

The event which commenced on Friday, 14 February, 2014 was attended by hundreds of students from several universities, public and private. Other than UI’s Faculties of Fiscal Administration, Vocational Taxation, and Accounting, the event drew the attention of students outside UI, for instance: IPB, UNPAD, Brawijaya University, USU, USAKTI, M.H Thamrin University, Muhammadiyah University, Mercu Buana University, STIE Indonesia, STIAMI, and STEI MBI Depok.

The general lecture was opened with a warm welcome by Fisip UI’s Dean, Arie Setiabudi Soesilo, and was later led by Wisamodro Jati, who had just been inaugurated as the Head of UI’s Fiscal Administration Study Program.

The first material in the general lecture was conveyed by Darussalam as DDTC’s Managing Director DDTC and UI’s taxation lecturer. He uttered the importance of going back to the true tax philosophy.

“Tax is an agreement between the society and the country, hence tax without an agreement cannot exist.”

How can tax collection not be arbitrary? According to Darussalam, tax has to be collected based on taxation principles with fiscal justice nature, comprising the principles of: legal certainty, fairness, in accordance with the law, not retroactive, efficient, and collected by trusted institutions.

Next, B. Bawono Kristiaji (Aji), DDTC’s Research and Training Services Partner who is also Inside Tax’s Editor in Chief  presented the second lecture materials about the trend and prediction of the economy and taxation. In his explanation, Aji presented taxation data such as tax ratio, tax effort, tax buoyancy, and tax compliance degree in Indonesia.

The election which was to be held in 2014 was both a challenge and an opportunity, in particular an opportunity for better taxation situation in the new government. Nonetheless, Aji expected that the absence of clear tax platform of every political element result in the absence of drastic tax policy change in 2014. Aji also conveyed DDTC’s research team econometric calculation version of projection of tax revenue in 2014.

Last, Deborah as DDTC’s Research and Training Services Manager conveyed the achievements accomplished by DDTC throughout its seven-year journey which was interestingly packaged in a five-minute video. Deborah also provided information about widely open internship and career opportunities at DDTC for university students who would like to develop their abilities and potential in tax consultancy and research world.

As a form of appreciation for the attendants of the general lecture, at the end of the event, DDTC gave away gifts, books titled “Transfer Pricing: Ide, Strategi, dan Panduan Praktis (Transfer Pricing: Ideas, Strategies, and Practical Guidance)” for five general lecture attendants actively making inquiries throughout the event.