Finance Department Revive Tax Cases Implicating Bakrie Units

Tempo Interactive, Friday, 11 December, 2009 | 17:24 WIB

TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta: Directorate General of Taxation informed on Friday that it has raised the status of outstanding royalty payment implicating three mining companies under the Bakrie & Brothers Group following the open confrontation between the Finance Minister and the Bakrie & Brothers' boss Aburizal Bakrie this week.

The nearly forgotten case against 14 coal mining companies in 2008 have re-surfaced today after the cold relations between the cold relation between Sri Mulyani and Aburizal bakrie grew into tension and later

Director General of Taxation Anwar Suprijadi said today the three companies are PT Kaltim Prima Coal, PT Arutmin Indonesia and their parent company, Bumi Resources. The case status for Kaltim Prima Coal and Bumi resources have been raised to investigation stage, while that of Arutmin Indonesia was still at inquiry stage.

Anwar said the companies have allegedly manipulated their financial state “through various techniques including by disguising their actual sales and costs.”

The cases on the three companies worth a total of Rp2 trillion according to the tax directorate, and have been investigated since March.

The open confrontation between the two prominent figures came as the government failed to contain public pressure to uncover the Bank Century bail out case as it did on many other corruption cases before, including the tax and income fraud by the coal mining companies.

Indonesia Democratic Party of Struggle, which initiated the inquiry on Bank Century scandal failed to take control of the inquiry committee for its lesser number of seats in the parliament. Golkar, the second largest party in the parliament took the helm of the committee instead of Yudhoyono's Democratic Party who is being regarded as strongly related to the case. Upon the decision Aburizal Bakrie spoke up on the case, saying if the government is dirty, then we have to replace it.”

AGOENG WIJAYA | TNR

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Bakrie Miners Under Scrutiny By Tax Office