Korean Job Discussion Forums

[spliff]

[Beej]

[Rockwell Bergstrom]

The car he is thinking about runs about 200 million here which I believe includes all the necessary taxes and the insane dealer markup.

Now the same car is about 85 million in the States. Then you have to add the 34% tax and the 4-5 million to ship it over.

From my calculations that would be a savings of about 70 million not including all the headaches and whatnot of going through the whole process.

[crewmember80]

Hi, I relocated to Korea from Michigan in January on a expat assigment. My initial plan was to bring my car (new mini) with me to Korea, however trust me when I tell you, its not worth it.

First, the owner has to have owned the car for more than 6 months. Next, the shipping cost is not that bad, anywhere from US $3000 to $6000. The difference is whether you want the car shipped in a closed container or no container, people tend to ship expensive cars in a closed container.

Once the vehicle arrives in Korea, the tax rate for a preowned vehicle (more than 6 months old), the tax rate is 34% for vehciles with engine size2.0L or bigger. On top of that, you need to have the vehicle inspected, and tested for emmission and also get it registered.

Basically, for me to ship a mini cooper S which I paid $29,000 for 4 months ago, it would've cost me $32,000 to have it shipped and registered to use in Korea.

I've been trying to bring a vehicle to Korea for almost two years, looking at differnt cars like Corvette, BMW M3 and etc....but in the end, its not worth it.

Getting it fixed is whole other issue.

Sorry for the long post, but I hope this helps out!!

[maximreality]

I'm not sure about the Korea's custom law, but in quite a few OTHER countries you can get tax exemption for the items you are bringing with you when moving.

To get a tax exemption for a car usually requires something like following: (Again, I'm not sure how this is in Korea)
1. You must have owned the car at least 6 months.
2. You must bring it in when you are moving (+- one month.)
3. You must have lived outside the country you are moving to at least a year
4. You and your spouse can both bring a one car.
6. If the car is too expensive, you need to pay normal taxes for the exceeding part.

The tax rate 34% sounds like a normal tax rate, you would need to pay without any tax exemption. How about if you called Korean custom officials and asked them?

[PeterDragon]

What companies do car (or motorcycle) shipping? And do they have websites with price quotes?

[maximreality]

[jeffkim1972]

I can tell you from first hand experience. I imported a 2000 328i BMW from the states from NY to Busan. By the way, it was my car in the states, which i've owned since 2000.

Costs:
$1800 for transport from NY to Busan
$700 to get it through customs and off the boat and out of the container and paperwork done.
Tax rate of 34.5% on the "CIF" value of the car. But the value of the car is not what you decide it to be. Korean customs has a cheat sheet they use that is only based on the birth year of the car and model. The condition of the car is irrelevant. My car, which had 160K Km on it didn't matter. So according to their books, it was worth about $12K+, but i paid $4000 in tax.

Then, you must take your car to the Incheon Environmental testing center and pay about $700 to get the emissions tested. Really a $20 test, but you didn't buy a Korean car so they want to take all your money.

by the way, you must purchase car insurance before you can pick up your car from customs. They will give you temporary plates, which i wouldn't recommend you trying to get yourself unless you have a Korean person with you.

Then in order to get your real plates, you pay more tax. I paid another $1000. So after it was all done.

$1800+$700+$4000+$700+$1000 = $8,200 for a $12,500 value car.

Also, at the Incheon environmental emissions testing center i saw the most expensive cars in the world. a couple of Mercedes Brabus', (these cars cost about half a million bucks) porsches, lamborghini's etc...

I brought it over for several reasons other than financial, but if i did bring it over for financial reasons i figured i could sell this car for about 20K since its a 328i and similar cars that were only 320 (2000cc) engines were selling for about 20K. I didn't see many 328is in Korea.

Also beware, the BMW dealer in Gwanju, Kolon motors, makes you register your car with the service center at a cost of $1100 before you can even do business with them. I needed to just replace a $20 blniker, so i just imported the part myself from the USA and fixed it myself.

Don't know about the results of the FTA, but i heard taxes on cars were going to be lowered. So might be a good idea to wait.

[merkurix]

Damn . . . what a way to keep imports extremely limited here.

[thatsmydude]

does anyone know what the new mustangs are selling for in Korea? i'm thinking if i can bring mine over (2006) and decided to sell it, perhaps it could offset the taxes and shipping costs. of course i don't know what the Korean market is like for stangs, but if there's any potential for profit, i think it'd be worth it to bring it over.

[Wangta01]

[jeffkim1972]