“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.
“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!
“Just do not give me advice on immigration.”
No worries Jimbo, as I’m not one who needlessly wastes energy.
“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!
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.
By all means live in it, it is no skin off my nose. Just do not give me advice on immigration.
