Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Smee]

Public school teachers posting on MOD EDIT say their coteachers recently told them they'll be taxed on housing and airfare reimbursement, and may be subject to paying these retroactively.

MOD EDIT

Via http://briandeutsch.blogspot.com/2010/09/more-taxes-for-native-speaker-english.html

[liveinkorea316]

Retroactively taking tax on allowances would be illegal in most other countries. I cannot exactly say for the law here.

Basically in ny contract it states that the salary is taxable but makes no mention od taxing the allowances. I don't work at public school though and they are not going to tax my allowances.

In your case the problem is going to be in your contract. If it does not clearly state that the allowances for housing or other things are not-taxable then.

If however you had in writing or even verbally that they are not taxable then this would also suffice.

It is a tough one because actually they will already have been paying tax on your allowances for housing based on the net amount given to you.

Another thing is that if you cannot afford a house after they take the tax off you then they have also broken their contractual obligation to provise housing or an allowance.

[Epik_Teacher]

Yet another reason to escape from this s*ithole country! Nothing these idiots do here surprises me anymore! God, I can't wait until the end of my contract!

[wylies99]

If it's true it's going to cost us a chunck of change. Not good. The Korean authorities can nail us because we're politically unpopular. Meanwhile taxes on illegal unregistered hagwons go uncollected because the government won't enforce the laws already on the books. That money would dwarf the pocket change the government will receive from taxing our flights.

[Aelric]

I Dunno if it's directly related, but I'm having about 800,000 won deducted from my last paycheck for 'taxes', which they tell me has to do with the apartment and that it's included in the eventual refund I get a few weeks after my contract is over. That said, I consider that money gone, because I'm certain the taxes will never refund to me and this is a cherry on top for the admin at my school since I've apparently been a pain in their side for two years. It's super lame, but if that is the cost of leaving, so be it. If it's on the up and up,now worries. If it's not, there is nothing to be done but scream and shout and I've done that far more than I care to admit in my two years here.


And no, I don't take my tone there a I hate Korea. What I hate is laziness and corruption, which are unfortunately rampant in Korea. I hope I'm proven wrong in my case.

[ThingsComeAround]

My co-teacher has told me nothing.

Hopefully it stays that way or... there will be calls to the GEPIK rep.

Perhaps this is just a ploy to get all the old-timers out, once and for all.

[bbud656]

I got the nice round number state in my contract for airfare reimbursement very recently. No tax as far as I can tell.

[kprrok]

Are people really complaining that their income is being taxed? Seriously? How pathetic are people these days? You make money, the government takes a chunk to pay for things. It's the same all around the world.

Retroactive taxation is all good and fine if the gov't says it is.

Seriously, let's stop whining about things that are perfectly normal and accepted around the world like income tax. If you want to whine, at least make it about something real like that girl being harassed by lasers or whatever.

[Epik_Teacher]

[Koharski]

Is the name-calling really needed? Please discuss this as adults, without the extra stuff....Wow.

Koharski

[liveinkorea316]

kprrok is wrong and right. Yes governments have the right to tax and also they can pass any tax laws they are able to while in power.

HOWEVER, taxes are laws, and in MOST countries retroactive laws are very unusual. The cases I know of where retroactive laws have occured is where there was clear announcements from government that laws are pending and that because the legislation may take years to enact that the application would be backdated to the date of the announcement.

In this case there has been no government law change at all. The issue is between the employer and employee in terms of whether an allowance amount given is before or after tax is deducted. The only concrete was to solve the issue is to look at the contract. However mine is silent on the issue so it is possible for them to claim that the housing allowance was a gross payment and that the employee was responsible for paying the tax on that amount.

None of it is illegal. It has nothing to do with government. It is only because the employer had a crappy contract and decided to use this to their advantage. It would likely fall over in court if a teacher refused to replay any outstanding taxes.

The government doesn't care because they have actually already collected the taxes on your housing allowances which had to be paid by your school since they gave you the allowance which was assumed to be a 'net' amount. If they scammed government and didn't pay any tax at all on this amount that is tax evasion.

In the employees case this issue stinks and if SMOE or any school wanna change their agreed contact payment amounts they need to sign a new contract and not attempt to apply revisions retroactively.

[stevieg4ever]

does anyone know if our airfares come from the school or from SMOE?

according to SMOE we are given an allowance (1.3m). how much would that be taxed exactly? 8-10% or something in that region?

[CentralCali]

As another poster mentioned above, in many places ex post facto laws are prohibited. IIRC, South Koera also happens to be one of those places. What the real question should be is: What exactly is the law on taxation of provided housing, airfare, or other benefits which have a monetary equivalence? If the law mandates taxing them as income, then the employers have been derelict. If the law does not consider them to be taxable income, then this current plan is bogus (read: illegal).

[sulperman]

So if my school didn't like me and I hadn't re-signed this year I would be keeping the money, but since I did a good job and stayed, I'm going to have to pay? That's cool.....

I wouldn't mind starting to pay it now, but the retroactive thing feels like a punch in the gut. I'm all for paying taxes, kprrok, but think about if this happened to you. What about the poor people who worked for SMOE for 5 years who have to pay a ton of money? They work hard, and see the people who quit or were fired before them exempt from paying this money.

It may be a small thing, and it may not even end up being that much money, but this one really feels bad.

[Ramen]

Housing ALLOWANCE is taxed. Airfare is not taxed.

Housing provided by your employer is not taxed.

Confirmed by NTS.