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Lawmakers on Wednesday turned up the pressure on the tax office, encouraging companies to take legal action it they felt they had been treated unfairly during a tax investigation.

Edison Betaubun, a member of the House of Representatives’ Commission XI for finance, was the latest Golkar Party lawmaker to take aim at the Directorate General of Taxation , saying there were indications of “manipulation” by tax officials.

“If you keep trying to please the tax office, it will only cause you to suffer more losses,” he said at a hearing with firms allegedly involved in tax scandals: Wilmar International, PT Pertama Hijau Sawit, PT Asian Agri and PT Musim Mas.

Singapore-based Wilmar, the world’s biggest palm oil trader and the latest company to be dragged into the increasing list of scandals plaguing the tax office, saw its shares plunge by 7 percent on Wednesday — the most in 17 months — following accusations of tax fraud by Golkar lawmaker Bambang Soesatyo on Tuesday.

Bambang said the House was looking into an internal tax office report that reportedly said the company received “questionable” value-added tax rebates of Rp 800 billion ($88 million) in 2007 and Rp 900 billion in 2008, and was expecting Rp 1.9 trillion for 2009.

He also said the report indicated Wilmar had colluded with high-ranking tax officials — Mochamad Tjiptarjo, the new director general of taxation, and Pontas Pane, the interim director of intelligence and investigation at the tax office — to manipulate financial statements.

Wilmar has denied the allegations, stating that it “was fully confident that its subsidiaries are and have at all times been in full compliance will all relevant Indonesian value-added tax laws.”

Pontas also denied the collusion claims, but did not comment on the existence of the internal report. He did confirm, however, that the tax office was currently looking into some irregularities in Wilmar’s tax documents, but declined to elaborate.

At the House hearing on Wednesday, Edison asked Hendri Saksti, president director of PT Wilmar Indonesia, if the company had ever been the subject of a tax investigation. Hendri replied that the tax office had only conducted what it described as routine audits.

“The only problem we’re dealing with right now is that the government has yet to pay our restitution, but we think that this is fair because of a breakdown in communication,” Hendri said.

The statements come just a day after Commission XI lawmakers called for the revision of the tax law, which they said gave the tax office too much power.

Arif Budimanta, a lawmaker from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) and a member of Commission XI, said on Tuesday that some tax officials had a conflict of interest by holding positions in both the directorate and the tax court.

A working committee within House Commission III, which oversees legal affairs, has been investigating the tax office since the scandal involving tax officer Gayus Tambunan broke in March, revealing a so-called tax mafia operating within the office.

Yunarto Wijaya, a political analyst from Charta Politika, said the legislators could be attacking the credibility of the tax office because it has been investigating allegations of fraud by companies owned by Golkar chairman Aburizal Bakrie.

On the other hand, he said it could also be a political maneuver by Golkar to repair its image after the public feud between Aburizal and outgoing Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati that portrayed the former in a negative light.