Who can now handle your company's taxes
For most PT owners, taxes are someone else's job. An in-house bookkeeper, a consultant you know, an outsourced agency. For years nobody minded: there was a person who knew how to fill in the forms, and that person filed them.
In July 2026 the Indonesian Ministry of Finance issued a regulation that changes the setup. It defines who is actually entitled to act on a company's behalf in tax matters. Some of the specialists who today handle filings for dozens of companies will lose that right on January 1, 2027.
The transition period ends on December 31, 2026. That is not much time, and it is worth looking into early — especially if you cannot recall who files your company's reports and under what authority.
Who your tax matters can be handed to
The regulation names three categories, but only two of them work for a company.
The first is a tax consultant with a valid license. And here is a detail rarely mentioned out loud: licenses come in three levels, and the level determines whose taxes the consultant may handle. The middle level explicitly excludes companies with foreign capital — which leaves out almost everyone reading this. A PT PMA needs a consultant at the top level, where there is no restriction on the type of taxpayer. So the question "do you have a license?" deserves a follow-up: "at what level?"
The second is any other specialist holding a certificate issued by the Ministry of Finance. In Indonesian paperwork it is called an SKT. This category covers in-house bookkeepers, tax managers and external specialists without a consultant license.
The third category is family: a spouse, or a relative by blood or marriage up to the second degree. It looks odd next to a licensed consultant, but the logic is simple — the list applies to all taxpayers, not only companies. The regulation defines the relationship in reference to the taxpayer themselves, and it has to be proven with a family card or a declaration of kinship. A company has no relatives, so in practice this category belongs to personal tax matters: an individual may let their spouse or sibling handle a personal return without any certification at all.
That leaves the first two for your PT. A degree, years of practice and a good reputation no longer count as authority on their own.
What still works until the end of 2026
Until now, a specialist without a consultant license only needed a tax brevet certificate or a degree in taxation. The regulation keeps that option, with a catch: only until December 31, 2026, and only on a paper power of attorney filed at the tax office together with a copy of the certificate.
From January 1 you can no longer appoint such a representative — only a license or a certificate will do.
One detail that will reassure many: powers of attorney issued before that date are not cancelled overnight. One granted under the transitional rules stays valid until the matter it was granted for is completed. The same goes for documents filed before the regulation took effect — they keep working within their original scope. The restriction applies to new appointments, not to what is already in place.
And here is the awkward part. The procedure for obtaining the certificate has not been published yet. The regulation defers it to a separate Ministry of Finance document that does not exist so far. The requirement is in force; how to meet it has not been officially explained. Public statements by the tax authority suggest the certificate will be issued after an examination and split into three levels as well, but that remains a plan rather than a rule. We are following the release and will let clients know once it appears.
Careful with similar names
The Indonesian tax office is fond of issuing documents with near-identical abbreviations, and it is easy to end up with the wrong one.
The certificate in question confirms a person's right to represent a taxpayer. It is issued by the Ministry of Finance.
There is another document with the same abbreviation — an ordinary confirmation that a taxpayer has been registered, issued by the tax office at registration. It grants no right to handle anyone else's tax affairs.
If you are told "our specialist has an SKT," ask which one.
A power of attorney can no longer be passed on
Another change concerns a habit many have grown used to. One power of attorney is granted to one person for a specific list of actions, and those powers cannot be passed on — not to a colleague, an assistant or a second bookkeeper.
It is also narrow in scope: it is issued for a specific tax and a specific period. Monthly filings for one tax, an annual return and, say, a response to a tax office inquiry may each require a separate document.
The regulation does allow sending an employee to deliver or collect documents. That employee does not become the company's representative in tax matters.
The format is up to you: electronic through the company's Coretax account, or paper filed in person at the tax office. If the powers are electronic, the company also has to grant the representative access to its account — without that he or she simply cannot act.
It is worth knowing when a power of attorney ends by itself: the term expires, the company revokes it, the representative's license or certificate is suspended or revoked, or the representative is convicted of an offense. The third one is a real risk — if your specialist loses the document, your filings stop, and the day of the deadline is a poor time to find out.
There is a separate restriction for former Ministry of Finance employees: they may act as representatives five years after retirement or resignation, and only with a clean disciplinary record.
The account administrator and the representative are different roles
Even bookkeepers mix these up, so it is worth separating them.
In Coretax, every company has a person responsible for its tax account — the PIC, or Person in Charge. This is someone with full access: they sign the documents being submitted and decide which employees get which rights. The PIC is appointed by Indonesian identity number or tax number, and a company may have more than one. According to the tax authority, PIC details are mandatory when a company is registered through Coretax.
The representative is a legal matter, not a technical one. They act under a power of attorney, and it is precisely to them that the new requirements apply.
Neither role replaces the other. The account administrator does not automatically become your representative, and a representative under a power of attorney does not gain system access by default.
What this means for you
If your director or commissioner handles tax matters, the changes barely affect your company. The company's responsible officer is normally the one appointed as PIC in Coretax. What is worth checking is different: that this person is actually listed in the system, that the details are current, and that they hold a personal tax number.
For a foreign director this is manageable. Registering an NPWP does not require an Indonesian identity number: a copy of a valid passport and two photographs — one of them holding the passport — are enough. The application can be filed online.
It gets harder if your reporting is handled by an employed bookkeeper or an outside specialist without a consultant license. You have the rest of the year to work out on what basis they will operate in January. "We have always done it this way" will not satisfy the tax office in 2027.
If we handle your reporting
The practical question behind this whole regulation is who signs your company's report, and on what authority.
In effect, the regulation turned access to the tax office into a matter of paperwork: knowing how to calculate taxes used to be enough, and now you need the right to do it on someone else's behalf.
Our specialists have that right. They are licensed and work with the tax authority officially: filing reports for client companies, responding to tax office inquiries, supporting audits and representing the company where someone has to appear in person. Filing is our core work, not a side service attached to something else.
For a client the difference shows up in one place: the reports go out on time, and the question of who is entitled to sign them stays on our side. You do not need to study license levels, read new ministry regulations or decide in December who will sign January's return. That, in essence, is what ongoing support is paid for — not for filling in forms, but for having someone accountable who is entitled to do it.
Three scenarios follow, and the workload depends on which one you are in.
The calmest: filings go through the person responsible for the tax account, and that person is your director. We calculate the taxes, prepare and file the reports and watch the deadlines, while the signature stays with your own officer. The requirements for representatives do not apply to this arrangement at all. This is why we openly advise clients to get a personal tax number for the director and appoint a responsible officer inside the company — cheaper in the long run and not dependent on a contractor.
The second: there is nobody to appoint. The director lives abroad, has no tax number, and there is no in-house bookkeeper either. Then we take on the role of responsible officer — a service we have been providing for a long time. It is paid and comes only together with ongoing reporting support, for a reason: the person who signs your company's reports answers for their content and cannot be a random outsider.
The third: matters are handled under a power of attorney. Here the new requirements apply in full, and the basis needs to be sorted out before the year ends. For our own clients we check this ourselves and will flag anyone whose power of attorney was drawn up under rules that stop working in January.
