Nivell Rayda & Markus Junianto Sihaloho – The state antigraft agency on Tuesday confirmed that it had launched a probe into the alleged tax office bribery involving graft convict Gayus Tambunan.
Separately, a working committee at the House of Representatives said it had found a dozen areas at the Directorate General of Taxation vulnerable to abuse.
The developments come a day after the National Police pledged to investigate Gayus's claims that he received money from at least 44 of 151 companies he is said to have worked with – claims Gayus himself has long asked law enforcers to look into, pointing to growing disillusionment with the way one of the country's most sensational graft cases has been handled.
The probe into the source of billions of rupiah stashed in Gayus's bank accounts was stalled last year when the former taxman went to trial for bribing state officials to secure an acquittal in his original trial for embezzlement.
He was last week sentenced to seven years in prison for giving out those bribes, and now the focus is again on finding out which taxpayers contributed to his estimated Rp 100 billion ($11.1 million) in suspect wealth.
On Tuesday, about 100 antigraft activists and academics asked the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) to take over the case from the police because they could no longer be trusted.
Bibit Samad Rianto, KPK deputy chairman for graft enforcement, said it would only focus on those who channeled illicit funds to Gayus. "We have started to examine the money flow, and where it went after Gayus," he said. "We will focus on what the police haven't looked into yet."
Indonesia Corruption Watch researcher Febri Diansyah said the KPK must work quickly on the case because "there might be attempts to tamper with evidence, as had happened with the BLBI."
Febri was referring to the bailout funds from Bank Indonesia injected into ailing banks during the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis. Most of the records tracking the BLBI were destroyed in a suspicious fire at the central bank's headquarters in 2000. Some analysts believe the fire was set to cover up mass misappropriation of the bailout funds.
But KPK chairman Busyro Muqoddas pledged to finish the investigation by the end of the year. "Although Gayus is a new case for us, we will expedite the handling of it," he said.
But beyond the bribery cases specifically related to Gayus, lawmakers want a broader probe of the tax office, where they say four out of 10 officials are prone to being "manipulated" by taxpayers.
Markus Melkias Mekeng, the chairman of the House committee and a longtime critic of the tax office, said it concluded violations happened at all levels, from the regional to national level.
"The state Treasury could be losing trillions of rupiah each year because of these violations," he said.
The lawmakers cited weak points at the tax office ranging from the auditing process – where the amount of tax due can be manipulated – to the objections, investigation, appeals, prosecution and trial phases.