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Low Taxes Attract Investors to Indonesia, StanChart Says
Dion Bisara | February 16, 2012

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Indonesia’s low tax rates on capital gains make the country more attractive to foreign investors when compared to countries such as Brazil that impose stiffer penalties on capital gains, a Standard Chartered economist says.

“While in Brazil investors must pay tax at 6 percent, Indonesia has a free foreign-exchange regime,” Jakarta-based StanChart economist Fauzi Ichsan said on Thursday.

At the end of the 2008 financial crisis, Brazil imposed a 2 percent tax on transactions in which foreign investors bought into the nation’s stock and bond markets.

It later increased the tax to 6 percent for fixed-income investments. It also introduced a 1 percent transaction tax on currency derivatives.

On top of that, foreign investors in Brazil are charged a 15 percent rate on capital gains.

Indonesia, to manage erratic capital inflow, took a different approach. Bank Indonesia in June 2010 imposed a one-month minimum holding period for its short-term debt, known as BI certificates (SBIs), but later increased that to six months.

Investors who trade securities in Indonesia only have to pay taxes on capital gains, at 0.1 percent on stocks and up to 15 percent on bonds.

Fauzi said Indonesia still had room to inject stimulus into its economy should global circumstances deteriorate further. He said Indonesia could grow 5.8 percent to 6.3 percent this year.