Indonesia's E-Commerce Platforms Will Collect Seller Income Tax From Nov 1
Jakarta delayed the plan a second time to protect purchasing power, and will refund tax already collected from sellers on Tokopedia, Shopee, Lazada, and Blibli.
JAKARTA, Aug 6 (Reuters) - Indonesia's e-commerce marketplaces will start collecting income tax from sellers on their platforms starting from November 1, the country's tax office said late on Wednesday, after Jakarta delayed the plan for a second time to boost purchasing power.
Below are details from the tax office's statement:
• "This postponement was implemented as an effort to maintain public purchasing power amid economic conditions that remain a focus of the government," the tax office said.
• Income tax already collected from the sellers will be refunded, the tax office added.
• Tokopedia, controlled by ByteDance's TikTok and partly owned by Indonesia's biggest tech company GoTo, together with Sea Limited's Shopee, the Alibaba-backed Lazada, and Blibli, have been appointed as tax collectors, the government previously said.
• The tax office said in the statement that it will cancel the appointments of those four marketplaces and re-issue the selection at a later stage.
• In response, Indonesia's e-commerce industry association idEA said on Wednesday that the marketplaces have been making preparations to enable the collection to run more smoothly when it finally takes place.
• Jakarta originally intended to implement the tax collection plan last year but delayed it to this year following complaints from sellers and platforms.
(Reporting by Stefanno Sulaiman; Editing by David Stanway)
