As you have probably heard, the government is moving forward with plans to make Google pay for five years of back taxes it allegedly owes Indonesia, with tax officials saying the Internet giant could face a fine of more than $400 million just for 2015 if they are found to have avoided tax payments on revenue earned within the country.
Indonesian tax officials say that Google Asia Pacific declined to be audited in June, causing the government to make their pursuit of the back taxes into a criminal case, one that is unlikely to be resolved for several years at least.
However, some members of Parliament are now saying that the global tech giant could face punishments besides astronomical fines for their alleged tax delinquency.
“[Google] must be forced to pay, dong. If they do not want to, we will just block them,” said Vice Chairman of Commission XI of the House of Representatives, Achmad Hafiz Tohor, to Okezone today.
Commission I member Evita Nursanty shared similar sentiments with Solopos, urging the government to block all Google services to Indonesia until the company paid their taxes in full, adding, “Google should be fair dong, they’ve taken a lot of benefits from Indonesia. I hope that Google can understand this.”
Even the tiny possibility that the government would block Google services to Indonesia should be terrifying to every Internet user in the country. Cutting us off from Google Search, Maps, Gmail, Youtube etc etc would essentially be like cutting us off from the entire internet.
Which is why we doubt the government would ever go through with such a threat. Still, there is a lot of money at stake and the government does seem to be on a blocking spree at the moment, so never say never…
