Gap between Rich and Poor in Indonesia: Why is it so Big?

Liputan6.com, Jakarta It is never an easy task for Indonesian government to overcome the dilemma of wanting to spur national economic growth and at the same time desiring the drastically narrowed gap between the rich and the poor.

With the current geopolitical and economic climate, having the best of both worlds will be difficult to achieve. It has been learned that lack of progressive and increasingly intermittent tax withdrawal system contributes much to the exacerbation of current economic condition that is already worrying.

Indonesian Minister of Finance Bambang Brodjonegoro reveals the country’s need and desire to experience a promising growth in its economy but at the same time it craves for equal distribution of wealth and balanced economic growth within all parts of Indonesian region.

Those two may not complement each other in the current circumstance, especially with the ratio defining the gap escalates overtime and in 2014 itself, the ratio skyrocketed to 0.41 and is predicted to continue to rise to 0.42 this year.

“When the question about inequality and the gap between the rich and poor is raised, the correct answer would be the fact that our taxation system lack of progressiveness and therefore only work in favor of the segmented group within the population that hitherto dominates the country’s wealth,” Minister Bambang said at Nusa Dua Bali on Friday 11 December 2015.

According to him, the well- offs have been graced with the privilege of attaining more wealth but often recorded as the ones refusing to comply with the law as they rarely pay the tax that they are actually obliged to pay.