Indonesia adds Microsoft, others to list of tech firms that must pay VAT

Indonesia has added eight more technology companies, including Alibaba Cloud (Singapore) Pte Ltd and Microsoft Corp, to a list of businesses that must pay a 10% value-added tax (VAT) on sales. The country's tax authority has named 36 companies including the latest additions as liable to pay VAT since July 7 when it listed Netflix Inc and Alphabet Inc's Google Asia Pacific among other tech firms.

The other six named on Friday were GitHub Inc, Microsoft Regional Sales Pte Ltd, UCWeb Singapore Pte Ltd, To The New Pte Ltd, Coda Payments Pte Ltd and Nexmo Inc. The companies in Friday's announcement must start charging VAT to advertisers and other customers from Nov. 1, the Directorate General of Taxes said in a statement.

The companies were not immediately available to comment. Non-resident foreign firms that generate annual sales of at least 600 million rupiah ($41,000) for digital products and services from at least 12,000 users in Indonesia are required to pay VAT, the authority said.