It is essential for someone, especially a businessman, to understand tax planning. Tax planning is a systematic strategy by taxpayers to reduce the tax burden legally by taking advantage of loopholes or applicable tax provisions.
Rizki Cahayanda, CEO of Bisnis Best Friend (BBF), a leading tax consultancy in Indonesia, made a statement while delivering a guest lecture on Financial Planning on April 22, 2025, at the SBM ITB. He urged students to enhance their awareness of taxes and to recognize the importance of effective tax planning.
“In this world, there are only two things we cannot escape: death and taxes,” Rizki said. “Taxes account for approximately 70% of the revenue collected by the Directorate General of Taxes (DJP), which is then utilized for development and the management of state finances.”
Taxes themselves are divided into subjects and objects. Tax subjects include individuals, business entities, and undivided inheritances. Meanwhile, tax objects include various sources of income such as salary, honorarium, business, interest, dividends, rent, and capital gains.
“However, some are excluded from tax objects, such as inheritance, grants from the nuclear family, donations, and privies from a limited partnership (CV),” said Rizki.
Rizki explained that tax treatment can be an opportunity or a threat, depending on the strategy used. Some ways to save personal taxes include businesses in the form of MSMEs with a rate of 0.5%, income from buying and selling shares, salaries within certain limits, reinvested dividends, and ownership of bonds, mutual funds, property sales, and prive from CV.
Conversely, a person’s tax burden can increase if they have a high salary, invest in gold or shares of non-public companies without a clear strategy, receive dividends without reinvesting them, or fail to engage in tax planning altogether. According to him, implementing the right tax strategy can significantly reduce this burden while staying within the law. Therefore, Rizki stressed the importance of understanding tax management and having a solid strategy in place.
“Through effective tax planning, what could initially be an IDR 800 million tax burden can be legally reduced to just 10%, without any violation of the law,” he explained.
Through this initiative, SBM ITB aims to ensure that students not only become financially savvy participants in the economy but also understand and approach their tax obligations strategically and responsibly.
