Universitas Gadjah Mada
Faculty of Economics and Business

Taxation Lecturer Forum throughout Indonesia was attending National Seminar on Friday, 27 May 2016 in Kertanegara Room, Faculty of Economics and Business Universitas Gadjah Mada (FEB UGM). The seminar was held as collaboration of IAI, IAI KAPd, IAI KAPi and FEB UGM.

The seminar theme was The Role of Profession in Taxation in the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) and presented some reputable speakers in the field of taxation, those are; Prof. John Hutagaol, Darussalam, M.Si., LLM Int.Taxx., CA., Drs. Basri Musri, Dr. Eko Suwardi dan Dr. Dwi Martani.

Dr. Eko Suwardi, M. Sc., represented the Dean, opened the seminar. He asked the audience to be prepared for AEC since according to him, the readiness to face AEC will determine Indonesian future. “As I always said to my students, our future will be depended to us. If we are ready, AEC would be like a beautiful lady or handsome man. But if we are not ready, we will be diminished,” explained Dr. Eko.

The first session of the seminar was moderated by Arie Pratama, a lecturer from Universitas Padjajaran. Prof. John Hutagaol and Darrusalam were the speakers in this session. Prof. John explained that AEC enables no boundaries of many things, any products and services moves in the single market. Prof. John invited the participants to be ready for AEC in order to win the competition. One of the way is by the teaching process conducted by lecturers should be more encouraging students to think global. “AEC in on the door, whether you like it or not, you have to face it”, as he stated.

As it continued by Darussalam, he said that that tax was like water which flows from the higher place to the lower. It went the same to the awareness to pay tax. Tax payer will find ways to pay tax as minimum as possible. It became lecturers’ duty to disseminate information to their students that being a responsible tax payer was important since tax become the backbone of the country’s income. “We could not deny that everyone wanted to pay lower tax. But it became the lecturers’ duty to educate to students to be more aware to our own country’s tax system”, he said. The seminar gave many benefits, as it said by Dewi, a participant from Universitas Muhammadiyah Prof. DR. HAMKA Jakarta. She said that the seminar gave lots of new information. As a lecturer, Dewi realizes that in the world of education, there were lots of things needed to be upgraded so that the students could get the newest information as well.

Source: Meylia/febugm