November 26, 2025 | 03:36 pm
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Director General of Taxes at Indonesia's Ministry of Finance, Bimo Wijayanto, said that 463 taxpayers are suspected of manipulating data to avoid the export duties on palm oil products. Initially, they were targeting 282 taxpayers suspected of doing so.
"The modus operandi is to evade export levies, as well as the domestic market obligation (DMO), domestic taxes, and concealed dividend allegations," he said when met at the Regional Office of the Directorate General of Taxes in Denpasar, Bali, on Tuesday, November 25, 2025.
According to Bimo's explanation, the indications found were the disguising of export documents for some Palm Oil Mill Effluent (POME) or Fatty Matter, which actually should be Crude Palm Oil (CPO) or other high-value derivative products. However, CPO was declared as waste to avoid higher export duties, DMO obligations, and domestic taxes.
Previously, Bimo stated that the perpetrators' modus operandi was to declare the transaction's value or price as lower than its actual value or price. This action was allegedly carried out by 25 exporters who manipulated the CPO exports in the Goods Export Notification (PEB) documents. Upon scrutiny, these commodities should have been subject to export duties and regulations.
The state incurred losses of around Rp2.08 trillion due to this modus operandi, and tax losses amounted to Rp140 billion. "From the tax perspective, when we re-calculate the tax burden that should be given to the state, it has also decreased significantly," he said after a press conference in Tanjung Priok, North Jakarta, on Thursday, November 6, 2025.
Falsifying documents using this modus operandi is not new. The practice of undervaluing was previously identified through the reporting of export commodities as palm oil liquid waste.
Ilona Estherina Piri contributed to this article
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