The city administration is trying out its new online tax payment system, expected to provide transparent and accountable reports on city tax revenue, Deputy Governor Prijanto said Monday.

The system will allow taxpayers to fill in tax forms over the Internet, thereby cutting out the manual procedure that requires a face-to-face meeting with a tax official.

Prijanto said four businesses had been voluntarily testing the system since last month.

The businesses are McDonald's at Mal Taman Anggrek in West Jakarta, Pizza Hut at Permata Hijau International Trade Center in South Jakarta, Izzi Pizza on Jl. M.T. Haryono in South Jakarta and Tropica Hotel in West Jakarta, according to Prijanto.

"The trial will be over by the end of June, and those businesses will report to us on whether our new online system is safe to be applied in their network systems," he said at City Hall after meeting with city revenue agency officials.

"This year, the administration will apply the system only to businesses subject to hotel service tax, entertainment tax and restaurant tax," he said.

The administration collects tax revenue from 10 sectors, including the advertising, parking, groundwater, vehicle and street lighting sectors.

Prijanto said this year the administration was targeting 200 businesses out of the 6,793 taxpayers in the three nominated business fields listed in the agency's records from last year.

He said the new system would cost up to Rp 3.97 billion (US$430,585) in initial, fixed and variable costs.

"To install the system, taxpayers will only have to spend Rp 1.65 million per month in the first year and Rp 681,667 per month in the second year," he said.

He said the administration expected "tax collecting will be more efficient and city revenue will increase accordingly" due to the new system.

According to deputy agency head Rachmat Achyar, also present at the meeting, this year the agency expects to collect Rp 625 billion in hotel tax revenue, Rp 610 billion in restaurant tax revenue and Rp 219 billion in entertainment tax revenue, partly due to the implementation of the system.

Last year the agency collected Rp 600 billion in hotel tax revenue, Rp 610 billion in restaurant tax revenue and Rp 219 billion in entertainment tax revenue, he said.

"This new system is also expected to minimize losses incurred through leakages in tax collecting and to diminish the risk of human error," he said.

He could not state what proportion of the agency's projected tax revenue would be recovered as a result of the new system.

Prijanto said the administration hoped businesses would "voluntarily" install the system.