Job Discussion Forums

[ferryc2]

If i sign a contract with 2100 Gross income, how much can I expect to lose in Taxes?


Assuming I begin in January of 2010 and sign a one year contract.

[TimkinMS]

[kattate]

This is probably a silly question, but is the tax refunded to you when you depart the country?

[inky]

Not a silly question, but unfortunately the answer is no. Some teachers might receive a small tax refund at the end of the fiscal year if they have overpaid, but there's little hope of that unless you teach for a year.

[jb0072009]

Ok here is what you do. First that is in the 25% bracket. You ask the school for a dup contract with a salary of $500/month. Then you in 5% bracket. Some schools will do, others not. Be sure it states in the dup contract that it does not supercede any previous contracts

[Zembekiko1Aegean]

Dayum, JB, yo betta hope dat da tax folks aint readin dat post. There are schools in Vietnam who go the extra mile and pay you net. They take care of the taxes. If you're a good enough teacher, they'll hire you.

[The Fat Rabbit]

Not quite. First of all, they just lowered the non-resident tax from 25% to 20%. And it's only a flat 20% rate if you're residing in the country for less than 90 days in the tax year. As well, I've read that if you work for less than a month, you don't pay tax at all.

If you have a contract for longer than 90 days, then you pay a progressive tax rate as follows.

0 - 5 Mil VND - 5% (first 5 mil VND of your earnings is taxed 5%)
5 - 10 Mil VND - 10% (second 5 mil VND or your earnings is taxed 10%)
10 - 18 Mil VND - 15%(the next 8 mil VND is taxed at 15%)
18 - 32 Mil VND - 20% ( and so on and so on)
32 - 52 Mil VND - 25%
52 - 80 Mil VND - 30%
Over 80 Mil VND - 35%

$2100USD = 38,808,000 at today's rate

Your tax would be:
5% of 5 Mil VND = 250,000 VND +
10% of 5 Mil VND = 500,000 VND +
15% of 8 Mil VND = 1,200,000 VND +
20% of 14 Mil VND = 2,800,000 VND +
25% of 6,808,000 VND = 1,702,000 VND
Total tax paid on $2100 USD = 6,452,000 VND or $350 USD


If you're contract is longer than 90 days, or you plan on staying longer than 90 days, you should inform your employer that you don't need to pay the 20% tax rate for the first 3 months. Although I imagine some schools take that tax rate automatically and pay it back after you've been in the country for 3 months. However, this isn't necessary.

As well, You need a tax code number to pay tax. You can get it yourself quite easily or the school can do it for you. Takes about 10 days and didn't cost anything. If your school says you don't need one, I'd suspect the school doesn't want to pay it. You don't need a work permit to get one because the two things don't necessarily come together. I got my tax code number and I still don't have a work permit.

Lastly, the school is legally required to provide you with a completed "tax withholding form" for each month. However, most schools probably don't practice this and you would really only ask for one if you suspected the school wasn't paying it for you. The tax man at the tax bureau told me that if the school didn't pay my taxes and the bureau found out that my taxes weren't paid, my school could legally say that they didn't withhold my taxes. The paper is legal proof that the school has taken the tax money and will pay it on the employee's behalf. Meaning that without this paper, the school could 'legally' steal money from it's employees.

Can we post links here? This info is available on the net in case you don't believe me.

[The Fat Rabbit]

http://www.pwccn.com/webmedia/doc/633784184539486999_aptn22_may2009_vn.pdf

[jb0072009]

[AmanJivan]