New Criteria for Foreign Digital Service Providers to Collect VAT in Indonesia

• Indonesia’s Director-General of Tax has determined the criteria for which foreign digital service providers can collect value-added tax (VAT).
• Businesses that reach a certain amount of transactions or web traffic per year are considered VAT collectors.

In June 2020, Indonesia’s Director-General of Tax issued Regulation No. PER-12/PJ/2020 (Reg 12/2020), which sets out the criteria for foreign digital service providers to collect value-added tax (VAT) in the country.

According to Reg 12/2020, a digital service provider is appointed as a ‘VAT collector’ by the Ministry of Finance if they achieve a certain amount of annual transactions or reach a certain number of website traffic per year.

In May 2020, the government issued Reg 48/2020, which imposes a 10 percent VAT rate on non-resident digital services, starting July 1, 2020. Under the regulation, the tax applies to businesses that have ‘significant economic presence’ in Indonesia, covering software providers, multimedia, and big data firms, among others.

Indonesia joins Malaysia and Singapore as the latest ASEAN country to try to secure tax revenues from multinational tech corporations. In Malaysia, foreign digital service providers pay a six percent VAT rate whereas in Singapore the rate is set at seven percent.

Appointment of VAT collectors

Digital products and service providers are obligated to charge VAT if:

• They are foreign merchants who sell digital products to Indonesian customers;
• They are international online marketplaces who sell digital products to Indonesian consumers; or
• Are Indonesian operators of online marketplaces that sell foreign digital products to local consumers.

Reg 12/2020 states that for the aforementioned businesses to be classified as VAT collectors, they must fall under on these following categories:

• Must have total transactions in Indonesia worth more than 600 million rupiah (US$41,500) per year or 50 million rupiah (US$3,400) per month; or
• Have total web traffic in Indonesia that exceeds 12,000 visitors per year or 1,000 per month.

Once a company is deemed a VAT collector, they are expected to start collecting taxes as of August 2020.

Reporting obligations

VAT collectors are subject to quarterly reporting periods, which are:

• January to March;
• April to June;
• July to September; and
• October to December

The tax returns should contain information regarding the total number of recipients, the amount of tax collected, and the amount of tax paid.

The government has allowed businesses to pay their VAT deposits in several currencies namely:

• Rupiah;
• US dollar; and
• Other foreign currencies to be determined by the Director-General of Tax.

• Previous Article Cambodia Eases Financing for Businesses Impacted by COVID-19
• Next Article New Requirements for Independent Audits in Cambodia to Impact Certain Business Entities