The Background of The Campaign
Nowadays, taxpayers compliance becomes the main issue in Directorate General of Taxes. Submitting annual tax returns (SPT Tahunan) is such a troublesome responsibility for some taxpayers. It happens almost every year. Regarding taxpayers compliance as one of Pondok Gede Small Tax Office’s Key Performance Indicators, it needs some strategies to increase either the level of tax return submission or taxpayers payment compliance. One of those strategies is carrying out an annual tax return submission campaign in the center of businesses.
Intention of The Campaign
The campaign carried out with the intention of providing an understanding of the importance of submitting tax returns.
The Campaign Implementation
The campaign team was divided into two groups. One operates in Plaza Pondok Gede and another one operates in Komsen, Jatiasih. Each group is responsible for distributing flyers to all business units in every area. I joined the Plaza Pondok Gede campaign group.
The Plaza Pondok Gede campaign group started to distribute flyers at 10 a.m. The group was divided into four sections and each section responsible for one building area. Each section consists of two or three persons. My section consists of me as Account Representative of Extensification and Counseling Unit and Mr. Wahyudi as Head of Supervision and Consultation Unit I. We walked along the shops in Transmart Building and distributed flyers to them. Most of them didn’t understand about income tax or tax return submission. They just received the flyers and the key chain souvenirs without immediately knowing what the income tax is all about. Even some of them refused to accept the flyers and told us that they didn’t want to pay any taxes because their business still small and not running well. We finished our job at 12 a.m. and went back to the office then.
Conclusions and Suggestions
Answering a question from the title of this article, I think this kind of campaign is not effective in consequence of several factors both from taxpayers and tax authorities. Some of these factors include the lack of understanding of taxation knowledge, the lack of awareness of tax compliance, the difficulty of communicating with the taxpayers.
To tackle the problems mentioned above, I find out that tax authority (Directorate General of Taxes) should do something about it. First, Directorate General of Taxes should provide tax-related information through electronic media such as television, radio, and digital social media, for example, Instagram, Youtube, and Facebook to reach more taxpayers. They probably ought to spend more money on online advertisements or alternatively using organic traffics from regular feed or posting without paid promotions. Second, the approach of promotion should be more attractive and touching. As an example, creating an event that catches taxpayers attention such as aerobics, music events, kids events, etc. Even though, it’s hard to find the right event for taxpayers in kind of situation like in the market. Another example, the promotion should give information about public benefits and facilities used by the community for free is financed from taxpayers. Furthermore, the public benefit and facilities are used by neither poor nor disable people as well. This approach of promotion ought to touch the heart of taxpayers and might change their minds about what the taxes are for.
djs 