The Taxation Directorate General will spy on people’s activities through social media in trying to boost tax revenue, an official has said.

“Social media covers wide range of activities […] We still need to prepare the infrastructure to support the plan,” Taxation Directorate General communication and information technology transformation director Iwan Djuniardi said in Jakarta on Wednesday.

With the effort, the tax office expects that it will increase the basis data of taxpayers that currently is in the hands of the office, he said, adding that the monitoring activity was expected to improve taxpayers’ obedience to fulfill their obligation to pay taxes.

He said with social media monitoring, the tax office would be able to record all data of taxpayers by using the social network analytics (Soneta) system.

The system is able to record taxpayers’ networks such as share ownerships, business networks and family relationships, Iwan said.

He said through the analysis of the data collected through media monitoring, the tax office estimates the amount of income taxes (PPh) and value-added tax (VAT) that should be paid by a taxpayer.

Iwan said with Soneta, the tax office was also be able to monitor the relationships among the taxpayers. Through Instagram and Facebook, we can see a taxpayer’s movement from one place to another and with whom they have relations, he said as reported by kontan.co.id. (bbn)