Chase Revenue and Spur Absorption in the Remaining Three Months

Entering the fourth quarter, the Ministry of Finance (MoF) revealed the potential revenue and absorption that must be pursued until the end of 2025. With spending targets that have not yet reached the outlook, the selection of high-absorption spending and pursuing tax compliance ahead of SPT reporting are two ways to ensure that the 2025 State Budget helps drive the achievement of the growth target in the remaining three months.

The explanation was stated frankly in the October 2025 edition of the APBN KiTA Press Conference at the Djuanda I Building of the Ministry of Finance, Jakarta, Tuesday (14/10/2025). Minister of Finance Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa led the press conference together with Deputy Minister of Finance Suahasil Nazara and Director General of Economic and Fiscal Strategy of the Ministry of Finance Febrio Nathan Kacaribu.

Purbaya started the press conference by explaining the projection of improved global economic growth, with the Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) still expansive due to declining trade war tension. On the other hand, foreign and domestic investor confidence is stable with declining SBN yields and narrowing spreads against U.S. Treasuries.

Furthermore, Purbaya explained that export-import performance was solid amid global tensions. Oil and gas exports rose by 9.1%, especially downstream metals and agriculture. Non-oil and gas exports rose 7.7% to USD 208.9 billion and imports edged up 2.8% at USD 176.6 billion. To that end, the trade balance surplus continued at USD 3.2 billion in the 64th month.

Domestically, domestic demand remained strong with retail sales showing the highest increase in the past 1.5 years reaching 5.8% YoY, household consumption rate increasing by 75%, and electricity consumption growing by 4.7% YoY in September 2025.

"We hope that the stimulus policy to the system will start to trigger public demand. Demand will start to grow again, because if given enough money, demand will grow, especially credit from the real sector. The economy will soon show a reversal of growth, and the rupiah will be stronger than now," Purbaya said in front of reporters.

Coretax to chase revenue

Complementing Purbaya's explanation, Deputy Finance Minister Suahasil Nazara detailed the realization of the state budget performance. As of September 2025, state spending has reached Rp2,234.8 trillion or 63.4% of the 2025 outlook , while state revenues have reached Rp1,863.3 trillion or 65% of the 2025 outlook . Of this amount, the state budget deficit was maintained at IDR371.5 trillion or 1.56% of GDP.

From IDR1,863.3 trillion, the net tax revenue component reached IDR1,295.28 trillion after deducting tax refunds. Therefore, although gross tax revenue was higher than last year on a year-on-year basis, the increase in restitution made net revenue lower over the same period.

"This restitution is returned to the community, the business world, and taxpayers so that the money circulates in the economy and helps the economy move. We will continue to monitor this so that gross realization increases according to the target," said Suahasil.

Excluding taxes, customs and excise revenue has grown 7.1% to IDR 221.3 trillion, with excise increasing 4.6% to IDR 163.3 trillion, export duties up 74.8% to IDR 21.4 trillion, and import duties contracting -4.6% to IDR 36.6 trillion.

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Suahasil said, similar to September, the significant increase in export duties was still influenced by the increase in CPO prices and palm oil export volumes as well as the copper concentrate export policy, while import duties fell due to the volatility in food commodity prices and the utilization of a number of FTAs for capital goods and production purposes.

In order to pursue revenue in the remaining three months, specifically from taxation, Director General of Taxes Bimo Wijayanto explained that he would maximize the use of Coretax, which already has 2.6 million activated taxpayers (WP). Infrastructure readiness is immediately tested with a tax return simulator that is ready to be used for a concurrent access stress test .

In addition, the Directorate General of Taxes will intensify the pursuit of a list of 200 active collection priorities with tax arrears of IDR 60 trillion. According to Bimo, of the Rp60 trillion in delinquent taxes, his office has realized a collection of Rp7 trillion.

The details of the collection include: 91 taxpayers in installment; 5 taxpayers in default, 27 taxpayers declared bankrupt, 4 taxpayers under the supervision of law enforcement officials, 5 taxpayers in the process of asset tracing, 1 taxpayer in hostage taking, 9 taxpayers in the process of preventing beneficial owners, and 59 taxpayers in other follow-up.

"With 1.2 million taxpayers already having authorization codes and electronic certificates, we will ensure Coretax is ready to receive massive corporate and individual tax return reporting at the end of this year," said Bimo.

In addition to pursuing state revenue through tax intensification, the government ensures that the acceleration of spending in the last three months of 2025 is optimally realized, even though with the achievement of 63.4% outlook, the government still has Rp1,292.7 trillion to spend so that state money does not return to Bank Indonesia's SAL.

"We must accelerate state spending while still paying attention to the governance and efficiency of activities, especially ministry/agency spending which has only reached 62.8% of the outlook set," said Suahasil. For this reason, the acceleration of capital expenditure, which has only reached 50.3% of the outlook of Rp173.1 trillion, will be maximized.

From the amount of capital expenditure, the realization of infrastructure development is the key to faster distribution, especially by accelerating the implementation of activities and Procurement of Goods and Services (PBJ). The construction of roads, irrigation, networks, buildings, structures, and equipment and machinery is an expenditure solution that can accelerate realization in this sector.

In addition, to prevent leakage, the Ministry of Finance will monitor the Plan of Use of Funds and encourage payment of activity terms on schedule, in addition to inventorying obstacles that can be mitigated.

Suahasil reminded Ministries/Institutions with large expenditures that are still below 50% such as the National Nutrition Agency, Ministry of Public Works, and Ministry of Agriculture to accelerate spending while monitoring efficiency. As of October 3, 2025, for example, the BGN has only realized IDR20.6 trillion of the IDR71 trillion ceiling or 29% of the budget since its operation on January 6, 2025.

"In addition, with the value of Transfers to Regions being quite large, we also encourage local governments to accelerate the realization of expenditures that are beneficial for the welfare of the people, as well as encourage growth and drive the economy," he concluded.

Need to be more transparent

Although the performance of state revenue and expenditure absorption has improved compared to last month's achievements, the transparency and parameters of state expenditure absorption on the outlook can be further criticized.

Political Economy Analyst of Laboratorium Indonesia 2045 (LAB45) Nadia Restu Utami assessed that the complete explanation of the 2025 State Budget, which is no longer published on the Ministry of Finance's website, is evidence of the declining transparency of the State Treasury institution.

"At present, the government only publishes press conference documents that do not explain holistically. The complete KiTA APBN document, which was previously a routine tradition, has now stopped only explaining the position at the end of November 2024," said Nadia when contacted by SUAR, Tuesday (14/10/2025).

In addition, Nadia criticized the realization of state expenditure, which she said did not reflect the real situation because it was still compared to the APBN outlook , whereas the realization should be measured against the 2025 APBN ceiling that had been budgeted at the beginning of the year.

"If you look at the percentage of expenditure realization against the ceiling, the number is much smaller, which is only 61.7%, lower than the realization in September 2024 which reached 65%. In addition to the slowdown in absorption, this condition shows that the budget ceiling is larger than the efficiency plan at the beginning of the year," he explained.

As a result of measuring the outlook rather than the ceiling, Nadia said that the government currently needs to spend as much as Rp400 trillion per month to reach the 2025 APBN spending ceiling of Rp3,621.3 trillion. This condition is indeed unusual, and is allegedly slowing down the economy in the third quarter.

"Ways to accelerate the procurement process of goods and services, especially expenditures that are in direct contact with the interests of the people, such as the distribution of social assistance and transfers to regions, can be taken to encourage realization until the end of December 2025," he concluded.