Member of the DPR RI Syahrul Aidi Maazat in the Focus Group Discussion (FGD) of the Secretariat General of the DPR RI with the Islamic University of Riau (UIR) said that there needs to be a stronger emphasis from the government on those who pay tithe, both individually and institutionally. For your information, the FGD is a series of events for the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between BK-DPR RI and UIR.
The FGD took the theme of the Draft Law (UU) on Amendments to Law Number 23 of 2011 concerning Zakat Management. “So that there is energy for the amil zakat to collect, because if we refer to Islamic law, those who don’t want to pay are forced to pay, in the same position as taxes,” said Syahrul acting as a keynote speaker after the FGD with UIR in Pekanbaru on Thursday (May 19, 2022).
Furthermore, Syahrul, who is a member of Commission V of the DPR RI, said that according to him, from the point of view of the existence of the law, what is currently available is only to strengthen the amil zakat institution. Whereas in Law 38 of 1999 the institutional structure is in the form of other organizations.
“After there was a revision, there was a kind of reinforcement because it was in the form of a commissioner or a focused person,” said Syahrul. The Riau II electoral district legislator said that the potential for zakat could be optimized if the institutions and obligations were strengthened.
“There is a fear that when zakat reduces the value of the tax object, the potential will decrease, in my opinion it is the opposite, because so far when people pay taxes the value of their assets is hidden, but people will be honest when they pay zakat,” explained Syahrul. For that he believes, the value of a person’s property can actually be calculated from the amount of zakat paid by that person.
