Twitter Wars: Bali vs. Kristen Gray

heheh well you also no longer make $1500/month maximum :D

I think you might be underestimating your earning potential in Indonesia. It's true that the same level of position would earn far less in Indonesia than in the US. But you can probably get a job several levels higher than what you're doing now if you do move to Indonesia.

Just some numbers for you in Jakarta:
  • a 15-20m2 kost (room rental) including electricity, internet, cable TV, water, garbage is about US$125-150/month
  • a 25-30m2 apartment including electricity, internet, cable TB, water, garbage, management fee is about US$ 350-400/month. You can get cheaper prices if you rent apartments at cheaply built apartments (like Kalibata City).

Food, I've broken down in a previous post. even if you double it to US$10/day = US$300/month.

Transportation, if you take gocar twice a day at IDR 40,000 each time, that's around US$5/day. so around $150/month. Let's do $200/month.

So far that's US$700/month in costs where you'll be living in a decent room or apartment, decent food, and decent transportation.

Additional US$800 for entertainment (bintang, Starbucks, etc), insurances if you want (BPJS anyone? :D), savings (for pension and emergencies), etc should be enough, no?

I'm not saying I would have moved to Indonesia for $1500 or that everyone should. Only that for some people, living in Bali while earning $1500/month can be compelling. Especially if they think they can earn that money by doing the work remotely (creative work, consulting, research, etc).
It is true that I may be able to jump a couple of levels up, but it’s far from assured.

Anyway, I think my sister in law and her family of 2 children get by with around $1500 a month. It’s doable because they live in their parents’ house rent free, but they can’t save because private schools cost a lot. If she’s single I’m sure things aren’t gonna be too tight.

Living with $1500 in Bali beats doing it in LA, for sure. You’d essentially be homeless if you only earn that much in LA.
 
They were wrong for sure but imo they were singled out and scapegoated.

Plenty of foreigners earn untaxed money or work on tourist visas in Bali especially all these annoying Instagram influencers. Most of them dont get deported. Same goes for the hundreds of monetized YouTube channels and courses on Bali being offered online.

Hell, I've even had agents approach me to promote their business to foreigners.

Did they actually overstay their visas or is that just the yellow journalism and rumor mill making the rounds?
 
They were wrong for sure but imo they were singled out and scapegoated.

Who cares. You make it sound like they should not have had any repercussions to trying to sell an ebook encouraging people to bypass visa rules and avoiding local taxes due to their stupidity.

Just because they are the only ones being punished doesnt make there punishment wrong and in fact hopefully it starts a crackdown to get more of them.
 
I'm not sure if I agree that ongoing punishment is the optimal solution to the ongoing problem. Income made from outside the country and spent inside it by these people works like a remittance, with most of the pros and few of the cons.

Why the government would wish to give up this income and go through the trouble of penalizing it rather than capitalizing on it is a mystery to me. There is clearly some solution that lets them have the cake of lawfulness and eat the cake of increased GDP.

It reminds me of all the money that international media companies have left on the table by trying to charge developed world prices for movies, films, and books in the developing world. They can't be asked to adapt(their prices), preferring to complain about other people breaking the rules(pirating). They have a potential income with next to no cost to create it and minor costs to development, but just can't be bothered to do the work. Solve the problem, get the money.
 
Income made from outside the country and spent inside it by these people works like a remittance

Why should I have to pay tax on my worldwide income then? I live here but my work is not just Indonesia based, and yet I comply with the laws and pay tax here. I bet i spend a lot more here too than 99% of these influencers. Why should Indonesians also have to pay tax on income earned online?

Influencers can continue to come here and spend 3-4 weeks here, take there photos and go somewhere else and not return for a while. But once they stay longer and cross the line (especially the 183 days per year rule) and are actually living here then they need to pay tax and get the proper work permits.

Just because they are spending money here does not mean they should get special treatment or that the laws should be changed just to suit them and not everyone else.
 
It reminds me of all the money that international media companies have left on the table by trying to charge developed world prices for movies, films, and books in the developing world. They can't be asked to adapt(their prices), preferring to complain about other people breaking the rules(pirating). They have a potential income with next to no cost to create it and minor costs to development, but just can't be bothered to do the work. Solve the problem, get the money.
Well, Spotify is way cheaper here. I pay 50k/month and I think back home it would be triple that. I'm guessing Netflix is cheaper too, since it seems to be popular. We have to get back the money we lose on alcohol prices somehow.
 
Why should I have to pay tax on my worldwide income then? I live here but my work is not just Indonesia based, and yet I comply with the laws and pay tax here. I bet i spend a lot more here too than 99% of these influencers. Why should Indonesians also have to pay tax on income earned online?

Influencers can continue to come here and spend 3-4 weeks here, take there photos and go somewhere else and not return for a while. But once they stay longer and cross the line (especially the 183 days per year rule) and are actually living here then they need to pay tax and get the proper work permits.

Just because they are spending money here does not mean they should get special treatment or that the laws should be changed just to suit them and not everyone else.
Yeah, they should pay taxes. The government should be looking for a way to get them a legal status and have them pay taxes, rather than just chucking them out. Sorry. I ranted for paragraphs but didn't get my point across.
 
Given the tens of thousands of DNs in the world Indonesia could play a very smart game on this & cash in.
It is a loved destination of DNs - so yes they really should create a visa for them and some sort of tax code for them too- there is a real opportunity available & some clever countries are taking it up.

As an example- the Facebook group Digital Nomads Around The World has 141k members.
 
Well, Spotify is way cheaper here. I pay 50k/month and I think back home it would be triple that. I'm guessing Netflix is cheaper too, since it seems to be popular. We have to get back the money we lose on alcohol prices somehow.
I'm aware that things are starting to change now, with innovative companies taking over from the old guys. This train of thought has often occurred to me, though.
Recently I was daydreaming about getting a PlayStation 4 to play with my kid. This is not the hot new shit, but the previous generation of console. The game console cost millions and that is fine, you pay it once. I happened to look up the prices of the game CDs though, and the actual games are between 300k and 500k each. Now, instead of paying for games, you can get the PlayStation4 with a 1tb hard drive full of pirated games... for not that much more than the cost of the game console itself.
The thing with those those games on hard drives though is that they can be a bit fiddly to run... also, piracy. Sony could print those old CDs and sell them on Tokopedia themselves for 100k and make a profit. Why not activate the customer class that is willing to pay (a reasonable amount) for the previous generation of product? Why won't they make the effort to take my money?
 
The government should be looking for a way to get them a legal status and have them pay taxes, rather than just chucking them out

Happyman I do understand your point now. Its just that there are thousands and thousands of job types which Indonesia bans. I dont understand why digital nomads should get an easy ride of it whilst (for example) a foreign chiropractor, dentist or doctor is not allowed. Digital nomads seem to be a pretty low skill set based on the examples who have been caught and judging from the posts on this forum the consensus is that most are not high end spenders.

Out of all the categories of people to encourage to come to Indonesia, why them? What else are they contributing besides a small amount of money?
 
Happyman I do understand your point now. Its just that there are thousands and thousands of job types which Indonesia bans. I dont understand why digital nomads should get an easy ride of it whilst (for example) a foreign chiropractor, dentist or doctor is not allowed. Digital nomads seem to be a pretty low skill set based on the examples who have been caught and judging from the posts on this forum the consensus is that most are not high end spenders.

Out of all the categories of people to encourage to come to Indonesia, why them? What else are they contributing besides a small amount of money?
Part of the reason Indonesia is prohibiting certain types of foreign labor is competition. Digital nomads don’t compete with Indonesians, because few Indonesians have their skillset, and fewer still work in their foreign digital market. Allowing digital nomads in with taxes sounds reasonable to me.
 
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Also a couple who sold beauty products online also gone yesterday
The purge continues
 
Apparently the "real" Kristen Gray has made a statement on the Ubud community FB page:
KG1.JPG
KG2.JPG
 
From 600 followers and now famous worldwide, with millions who now know her name....

I guess that can be described as a total success for the kind of people who want to be FB or other social media "heroes" ?

Now she just has to monetize it !

Wonder what her parents think about it ?
 
I was under the impression that when you get into the millions of hits with Facebook or Youtube that brings you some kind of payment entitlement.
 

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