PKN STAN Tax Volunteers' Contribution in Assisting with Individual Income Tax Annual Returns at the Pratama Pondok Aren Tax Office in 2024.

The first quarter is a busy period for the Directorate General of Taxes. This is when the DJP holds its annual grand event: the acceptance of annual Personal Income Tax returns. The deadline for submitting annual Personal Income Tax returns is March 31st, so taxpayers flock to tax offices during this month. This is quite ironic because the submission of these returns is done online, but since this cycle only happens once a year, taxpayers are unfamiliar with the process.

Individual taxpayers can be divided into two categories: employees and non-employees. Employees are workers for an employer and receive income regularly, while non-employees are entrepreneurs or self-employed individuals such as doctors, notaries, lawyers, and so on. According to tax regulations, employees submit annual returns in the form of SPT 1770 S or 1770 SS, while non-employees submit returns in the form of SPT 1770. The number of individual employee taxpayers is significantly higher than that of non-employees.

Based on these issues, the Tax Center of PKN STAN, in collaboration with the Pratama Pondok Aren Tax Office, has once again launched the 2024 Tax Volunteer program as part of its community service activities. The Tax Volunteer program is a tax education program involving lecturers and students from the State Polytechnic of Finance and Taxation (PKN STAN). The scope of the community service activities covers the working area of the Pratama Pondok Aren Tax Office. This activity is held annually and has proven to be able to help solve problems that occur at the Tax Office during the annual tax return submission period.

This activity begins with the recruitment of tax volunteers consisting of lecturers and students. Next, the Tax Volunteer community service team is given a refresher on tax materials as a provision for educating taxpayers, including socialization of the matching of the Population Identification Number (NIK) with the Taxpayer Identification Number (NPWP) by the Banten Regional Office of the DGT.

Community service activities by the Tax Volunteer Team 2 were carried out from February to the end of March 2024 at the Pratama Pondok Aren Tax Office. Individual taxpayers who experienced difficulties in filling out and submitting annual tax returns visited the Tax Office to get assistance. Before filling out the tax return, the tax volunteers first matched the NIK and NPWP. This matching is necessary in the context of integrating population and tax data. In fact, in 2024, the NIK will fully replace the NPWP in fulfilling tax administration.

Various obstacles were encountered when providing assistance, ranging from taxpayers forgetting their passwords, forgetting their EFINs, incomplete proof of deductions, to having duplicate NPWPs. In general, tax volunteers were able to resolve these issues. If there were any problems that could not be solved, the volunteers would coordinate with the tax office officers on duty at that time. Furthermore, after the tax return was submitted, taxpayers would receive an Electronic Receipt (BPE) as proof that they had submitted their annual tax return.

With the Tax Volunteer program, it is hoped that it can help taxpayers fulfill their tax obligations, thus encouraging increased tax compliance. In addition, the involvement of lecturers and students from PKN STAN through the Tax Volunteer community service also provides benefits in the application of tax knowledge in the field, as well as valuable experience in interacting directly with the community.