“Due to the Minister of Finance regulation No. 70 / 2012 donation stuff, endowment, and grants from abroad for religion activities, social charity etc. are free of customs’ tax but to release those stuff from customs there are some proviso such as recommendation letter etc. Not so many people know about this information so they may think that to get these non-commercial stuff is very complicated” said Teddy Triatmojo, head of Dissemination and Information Service of Ngurah Rai Airport yesterday as stated in Bali Post in Dissemination Talk initiated by Australian Embassy in Jakarta and General Consulate of Australia in Bali. This talk is to answer many questions from people about how to import donation stuff.
Actually, there is no different between importing stuff for donation purpose or for commercial, however there is require documents that must be applied if the foundation / an organization propose for free customs and tax. The foundation / organization must be legal / registered as social entity and the stuff they are importing is not for profit. Besides that they have to attached a recommendation paper from related institution e.g. donation of health’s items must have recommendation paper from Ministry of Health etc. So before the foundation / organization import the stuff, they must know what kind of the article they will receive in detail such as price, brand, purpose etc. this is important to categorized it and get the proper paper that is needed.
Teddy Triatmojo admitted, Ngurah Rai Customs received some of imported donation stuff from abroad but cannot release it since the receiver don’t know how to released it. “They upset because why it needs recommendation paper and pay for the entry fee. This is a donation stuff, why should they pay again?” They’ve just shock but after all procedure done, they all get their stuff. This is happened because their organization receive donation stuff for the first time.”
General Consulate Australia, Dr. Helena Studdert says there are 5 to 6 Australian NGO in Bali. There are lots of Australian who are join in the organization. At least, I know there are 20 volunteers in our Australian Program project so some of them try to bring some books and toys to be donated here,.