Thread: Selling on Line In Bali

...Where on earth did I write that it said one can “work” on a business visa?...

It's like this, Amigo. You've been bragging here for years about how long you've been living in Bali as "a chosen one". Now you tell everybody you're on your 16th(?) Business Visa. Are we to deduce from that that you're somehow "retired" and/or "not working"? It doesn't add up.

It seems to me that you've clearly been "working" on a Business Visa for years, by your own admissions in the past. Good luck on "getting away with it" for so long!

You can froth at the mouth all you want, disparage me, etc. Many people on this forum already know what to expect from you when you perceive yourself as being "cornered", or, perish the thought, that you might be "wrong". At least just once, in your charmed life...

:shock:

Phil, what the dickens does it take to get through to you??!!

I haven’t been “working” while on a business visa, but rather purchasing and exporting out of Indonesia via the internet...PERIOD...AND, this is an allowable business activity under a business visa...PLAIN AND SIMPLE!

You can deny that all you want...I DON’T GIVE A RAT’S PITUEY!

Please don’t try to shove down my throat your ignorance of what a business visa entails or covers for allowable business activity! If you are unclear about what I have “said” regarding this, then read the string again, as I’m tired of talking to a stone wall and having to repeat myself.

I’m not the one being corned on this string...rather it is obvious that neither you or Jimbo has ANY idea what you are talking about regarding allowable business activity under a business visa, and THAT is painfully clear!

I say once more...GOOD GRIEF...and get over it! You and Jimbo are wrong, and that’s it. Where you are both wrong is your insistence that any amount of business activity, (which you call “work”) requires a work permit...kitas. THAT is simply NOT true!

AND, let’s cut the condescending BS, like,

“You've been bragging here for years about how long you've been living in Bali as "a chosen one.”

If that is what you think, then tough! I’m not about to make any excuses or apologies for my life here in Bali these past years.

I have personally heard and read about scenarios like Bert mentions. Even cases where quite large amounts of money were involved, "legal" business operations set up, and people shafted.

Doing or having the "correct" paperwork in this country is not always set in stone.

One last comment for Roy, because I know he's seething at having his interpretation of things questioned and will, for sure, come back with both guns blazing...

I said "cornered", not "corned".

For US$300,000, what is the simple past tense of "drink"?
(No looking in your dictionary for the answer.)

Sorry...couldn't help myself. I don't like aspersions cast upon my "reading ability". My degrees aren't from some American McDonald's University.

OK, folks! Let's see some sparks fly...

:evil:

Passing right over your post Phil, which is purely intended for unnecessary “pot stirring” I couldn’t agree with Bert’s post more. Neither the sosbud, or business visa are intended for long term residency, although they often end up being used that way until eventually one is told, “it’s time to change your visa.”

I also have known expats in the past who no longer can operate with either of those visas, but the ones who were told to leave Bali were told this because their activities on Bali were not allowable activities under their visa...i.e. working while under sosbud or business visas when a kitas was clearly called for. One expat couple in particular, from Australia, continued to operate a restaurant and give surfing lessons while only on a sosbud visa. Their business operations were very public, and after refusing to comply (after being warned), by changing their visa to a kitas, were finally told to leave Bali.

On the other hand, I haven’t ever heard of anyone, who after years of sosbud or business visa use, but complying to allowable activity under that visa, being told to leave Bali unless they ignored the request of immigration to change their visa to one which is intended for long term residency. Such requests will be noted in the expat’s file at the immigration office, and they should not be ignored if they are made.

In other words, it is the violation of accepted activity under a particular visa that seems to most upsets immigration. This is evident in the fact that various Indonesian embassies will continue to issue new sosbud and business visas even when it is clearly evident (past visas in the passport, and without any trips to their home country) that one may have had years of past sosbud or business visas issued to them...AND, that those 60 days visas get renewed, over and over again to total 6 months by immigration here in Bali.

In the case of the OP, Balilover, I was clearly addressing my comments to his/her question,

“I understand I am not able to work in bali, but would I be able to buy and then sell online from bali????”

While he or she may well intend to live in Bali, there is no reason, given the business activity as briefly described, to necessarily start right off with a kitas visa. In other words, the business activity described does not require a kitas, as that activity is allowable under a business visa.

It would make perfect sense in the case of the OP to start off with a business visa, and then later, down the road, once committed to actually living in Bali to change over to a kitas. As I said before, going up the visa ladder is easier than going down the visa ladder.
All of us that have been living on Bali for many years know fully well that the turn over rate of those who say, “I am moving to Bali” is very high, and that the vast majority of them don’t actually end up staying here as they originally intended.

As I also stated, four times now, it would be most advisable for Balilover to consult with an expert...like PT Bali Ide, to be certain that this approach, and their intended business activity, is allowable under a business visa. There are many distinctive advantages to using a highly professional top visa agent like PT Bali Ide.

Both Jimbo and Phil got side tracked by their misunderstanding that ANY business related activity in Bali requires a kitas...and that is simply not true...as import/export business activity is clearly allowable under a business visa...refer my prior link.

“Get your Immigration officer to give it to me in writing other wise no amount of your writing will convince me.”

Sorry Jimbo, but it’s up to you to do your own homework. :roll:

“Obviously you have no bank account here (even though you have told everyone on the forum you have.”

Here we go again...jumping to conclusions! :lol: :lol:

“Just do not give me advice on immigration.”

No worries Jimbo, as I’m not one who needlessly wastes energy. :shock:

“The point is that a business or Sosbud visa is NOT intended as a permenent stay visa.”

Agreed Jimbo, and I already addressed that. However, that was not the issue to which you originally objected regarding my discussion of a business visa. In fact, this is what you initially wrote:

“A business visa any where in the world is for business people to see what common ground there is to have a business relationship or the posibility of business between businesess in diferent countries.”

Hopefully you now know that in fact a business visa does allow one to conduct much more than just an “exploration” into business plausibility here. In fact it will allow for an internet based import/export business.

Now back to Bert’s latest post and to the specifics of doing an internet business out of Bali, specifically, the banking issue.

As anyone who has an internet based business, be that through a web site, or on-line auction house knows, it is essential to allow payment via electronic means. The leader in that industry is obviously Paypal. A problem there is that banks based in Indonesia are not approved for accepting payments through Paypal. This is due to the strict regulations employed by Indonesian banks regarding second and third party access to bank accounts. Moreover, it is difficult to acquire a merchant credit card account, (VISA, MC) through an Indonesian bank.

The solution to this problem is to maintain an off shore (meaning out of Indonesia) bank account which does allow for internet directed and safe monetary payments through a company like Paypal. A draw back to that approach is of course the tax liabilities for income derived in that country which hosts the bank account, but there are plenty of places where this liability can be minimized if not all together removed.

This of course raises the question, “how can I access those offshore funds here in Bali?” As generally agreed, it is difficult, if not currently impossible to set up a bank account here in Indonesia without a kitas...so this same problem confronts anyone who is here in Bali without a local account. The answers to how to access those funds is the same as for those others here who are without bank accounts based in Indonesia...ATM withdrawals, Western Union transfers, or direct bank wires to an account that has already been established here. Since both business visas and kitas visas both require an Indonesian partner/sponsor, for many this serves as the Bali based bank account.

Another approach, which I have mentioned several times on other strings, is to set up an account with a local community (banjar) bank (preferably where one is living) and have funds directly wired from the off-shore bank to the banjar bank account, credited to your banjar account. Any concerns or distrust in that approach is understandable, but for some who have very close banjar ties and relationships, this is just another option.

Hopefully it is understood by the majority of readers of this string that I am not advocating breaking Indonesian law. Throughout this string, (and now for the fifth time) I have advocated consultation with professional visa agents...PT Bali Ide to be specific, as well as immigration authorities themselves. Jimbo has taken an inflexible “black and white” approach to this topic, but as any of us who have lived here for any length of time know fully well...little, if anything, is ever “black and white” here.

Within the whole topic of visas in general, we can all find many disparate stories, and they are only confirmed by the acknowledged disparity of what and how a particular Indonesian embassy will issue what particular visa, down to how such inconsistency can even be found within immigration offices and from officer to officer.

For those sucked into the high melodrama offered by Phil...“arrest or worse” I suggest they have a look at the deportation white board in one of the offices at the head immigration office in Denpasar. There one will find that immigration is doing a good job of deporting those who should be deported...pedophiles, suspected drug users, and other such undesirables. There one will also find some very reasonable folks that just aren’t so prone to think in “black and white” as some would want to believe...thank God.

Uncle Jimbo, as for you, I sure hope you never get the head of immigration job here offered to you! :P :P

As an aside, or post script, but still pertinent to the visa topic (since both sosbud and business visas are 60 day but extendable visas), I give similar advice (as I offered to Balilover) to those who ask me about retiring to Bali. By that I mean that I suggest they first start off with a sosbud for a while before immediately committing to a retirement (five year) visa. That gives them the time to settle into Bali, and really determine if they truly want to remain here as a resident retiree.

Daniel, I think you are better off sticking to rocket science, or something else rather than business. You can go back to my post dated May 8 which provides the link to allowable business activity under a business visa and clearly read for yourself that in fact:

-Making field visits to Indonesian affiliates or companies to discuss commodities to be purchased or sold in the import/export business.

-Performing the task of controlling the quality of goods to be imported from Indonesia.

ARE allowable activities under a business visa.

You state:

“A biz visa does not allow one to personally export for any kind of resale anything from Indonesia.”

Just for your information, ANYONE on ANY visa, including a 30 day VOA tourist visa is welcome to buy all the Indonesian made products they want, including making special production orders, and having them shipped anywhere in the world they want, and for whatever reason they want!

Folks from all over the world come to Bali and other parts of Indonesia all the time on 30 or 60 day tourist visas to stock up on goods to be shipped back to their home country for resale. Here in Bali, those typical products include furniture, handicrafts, art work, antiques, jewelry, tribal arts, textiles...etc. etc.

Indonesia may certainly have some quirky laws, but they sure aren’t that stupid as to restrict buying of their products!