Regarding legal precedents, I don't know how you can look up individual cases but Susi Johnston claims to have taken it all the way to the Supreme Court and lost:
http://www.smh.com.au/world/a-nightmare-in-paradise-20150709-gi8lrr.html
"I have lost all the way to the Supreme Court. Foreigners should be spooked. No nominee arrangement is valid."
Mark...with respect you and DPH are missing my point.
Any 'construct or intent' by a foreigner cannot circumvent Hak Milik title as it must be owned by an Indonesian. The Indonesian named on the 'Sertipikat' owns the land...it's that simple.
You're getting hung up on the concept of ownership when it's the issue of "control" that is explicitly forbidden in the Indonesian constitution. I mentioned that in an earlier post. Since the SOLE purpose of the nominee system is to gain "control" over Indonesian land it is automatically invalid and illegal.
Admittedly, there was some sloppy talk (or possibly sloppy translations) coming from the Minister. Here's a good example:
https://baliadvertiser.biz/hurrah-for-the-minister-three-cheers-for-susi-raspberries-for-the-usual-suspects-time-to-shape-up/
First, on March 10 Minister of Agrarian and Spatial Planning and Head of the State Land Board, Ferry Baldan made an announcement clarifying beyond any doubt something we all either knew or should have known already. In a statement to the press the Minister said “Foreigners are absolutely not allowed to own an inch of land in Indonesia under the constitution of Indonesia.” He went on to say that the government intends to clamp down on all contravention of the law so as to eliminate the glaring gap between theory and practice.
He really should have said "control" rather than "own". But for your arguments to be valid, you'd have to believe that he was actually railing against the listing of foreigners as the official owners on land certificates. As far as I'm aware, this has never been an issue, although I wouldn't be surprised if had actually happened a few times.
In the same article it's made clearer that he's referring to nominee arrangements. See here:
Minister Baldan went on to make the specific point that this step was not intended to punish or disadvantage foreigners holding land through nominees and that they would have 18 months to two years to regularize their tenures and protect their investment under the various forms of land tenure open to them under existing law. Only after that period of grace and following proper investigation would the state resume land not held in compliance with the law.
Regarding the Tax Amnesty, you're definitely mistaken. Mark's explanation is spot on:
. . . it is within the scope of the tax man's inquiry to ask where the money came from for any major asset purchase / ownership. If a poor farmer suddenly owns land and villa worth Rp 5 billion, he must be able to document where the money came from to purchase /own this asset, and that money would in all likelihood be considered 'income'.
I know this because my wife was "invited" to the tax office during the amnesty to explain the origin of the money used to buy her (I mean our) assets. i.e. Land, house and car. This was totally understandable, since she doesn't actually have any income. While it was made clear that if we couldn't account for it we'd have to join in with the amnesty, they were very professional and weren't trying to trip us up. Long story short, we didn't have to pay anything extra because it's all covered under gifts between husband to wife, but I did have to show all my bank statements proving the origin of the money and my Australian and Indonesian tax returns to prove that income tax had already been paid on the money used to purchase the assets. Why were we targeted and not others? Don't know. I suspect it was because the previous owner of our land was caught up in it, and they were following his trail.
