Jakarta. Finance Minister Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa pledged on Monday to swiftly fix the country’s troubled digital taxation platform, Coretax, after months of technical glitches hindered collections. He promised the system would run smoothly within a month, even if it required bringing in foreign IT experts.

“I will personally review Coretax and make sure it is repaired. If needed, I will bring in top IT specialists from abroad to fix it quickly,” Purbaya said at the ministry’s APBN Kita monthly fiscal briefing in Jakarta.

Coretax, which launched earlier this year following a Rp 1.2 trillion ($74 million) investment, was designed to streamline Indonesia’s tax administration. But the system has faced repeated malfunctions, drawing criticism from businesses and taxpayers. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has earmarked part of a $500 million policy-based loan to help improve Coretax and support wider fiscal reforms.

Indonesia has been struggling to accelerate tax receipts this year. As of August, tax revenue stood at Rp 1,330.4 trillion, down 3.6 percent from a year earlier and representing just 54.7 percent of the 2025 target of Rp 2,387.3 trillion. Of that, income and other taxes contributed Rp 1,135.4 trillion, down 5.1 percent year-to-date, while customs and excise revenue rose 6.4 percent to Rp 194.9 trillion. Non-tax state revenue dropped 20.1 percent to Rp 306.8 trillion.

Despite the shortfall, Purbaya voiced optimism that revenues would rebound in the coming months. “Our approach is not to raise tax rates, but to stimulate economic activity so that tax collections grow naturally,” Purbaya said. “When the economy grows faster, people are happier to pay taxes.”

Indonesia is targeting Rp 3,147.7 trillion ($195 billion) in state revenue next year, of which Rp 2,357.7 trillion will come from taxes, a 13.5 percent increase from this year’s outlook. The government says the higher target will not require new levies but instead rely on improved compliance and digital platforms like Coretax.

Strengthening Coretax is also part of a broader push to lift Indonesia’s tax-to-GDP ratio, which stood at just 12 percent in 2023, among the lowest in Asia and well below the OECD average of 33.9 percent. ADB estimates suggest that tax reforms, including a fully functional Coretax, could add 1.28 percentage points to the ratio by 2030.

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