Indonesia Starts Taxing Minecraft, Skype, Zoom And Twitter

Indonesia has again extended the list of companies it will require to gather the nation’s digital services tax.

The tax was introduced in July 2020 with the express purpose of providing a new source of post-plague revenue for the rapidly-growing but modestly-developed nation.

The tax applies to digital services delivered from anywhere, but consumed in the 267 million-strong nation.

Google, Netflix and Spotify were the first companies named as eligible to add the tax to their bills and remit the resulting revenue to Jakarta. Facebook, Amazon.com and related entities, Apple, TikTok and Disney were named in a second round.

Now Indonesia has gone after bits of Microsoft and more of Facebook.

A new list posted on Tuesday named the following companies as required to collect the tax:

• LinkedIn Singapore Pte. Ltd.
• McAfee Ireland Ltd.
• Microsoft Ireland Operations Ltd.
• Mojang AB
• Novi Digital Entertainment Pte. Ltd.
• PCCW Vuclip (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.
• Skype Communications SARL
• Twitter Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd.
• Twitter International Company
• Zoom Video Communications, Inc.
• PT Jingdong Indonesia First
• PT Shopee International Indonesia

Many of the abovementioned companies will be utterly familiar to global Reg readers. Shopee and Jindong (a pair of e-commerce platforms) and streaming video for emerging markets players VuClip and NoviDigital (which operates as HotStar) focus on Asian markets.

Indonesia’s digital services tax is levied at ten percent and while it is not expected to be a massive money-spinner, the nation is struggling to cope with a health crisis and can use every Rupiah. ®