The Urgency of the Tax Information Perppu

Kompas/Totok Wijayanto

Taxpayers queue up to take part in the third stage of the tax amnesty program at the office of the Directorate General of Taxation in Jakarta in March (31/3).

The government has just issued its Regulation in Lieu of Law (Perppu) No. 1/2017 on financial information access for taxation purposes. The perppu exists to accommodate the Automatic Exchange of Information (AEoI) agreement that will come into effect starting in 2018.

Based on Article 22 Point 1 of the 1945 Constitution, the president can issue a perppu “should exigencies compel” or, in other words, in emergency situations. The question is just how much of an emergency the current situation is? Is the President justified in issuing this perppu?