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tua111111
Joined: 20 Apr 2010
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 Posted: Fri Apr 15, 2011 6:08 am Post subject: Is Pension Mandatory? |
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I've searched Dave's and the National Pension website, but am still not finding the official documents stating the facts I need.
Long story short, there's a disagreement between the employees and management at my school regarding the legality of not enrolling the school's employees into the NPS. There's enough foreign teachers that if we stand our ground and provide the proper documentation that the school would need to either enroll us into the NPS or compensate us appropriately. Our thoughts are- if the school wants to be shady and take money owed to the government so be it, but don't take money from us. Our contracts states we are employees and it mentions enrollment into National Healthcare and NPS in it.
I'm looking for links or documents stating that all employees (foreign and domestic) are required to be covered into the NPS. |
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OculisOrbis
Joined: 17 Jul 2006
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| Posted: Fri Apr 15, 2011 6:45 am Post subject: |
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Yes, everyone must be enrolled pension (except South Africans - it's optional for them).
If your employer is trustworthy, they will enroll you as an employee and pay their share.
If they are cheap-ass scammers, they will claim you are an independent contractor so they dont have to contribute anything and you are responsible to enroll yourself and make the full contribution on your own. They also get out out contributing to your health insurance by doing this and make it your resposibility to enroll yourself and pay double what you should be paying. If you dont enroll yourself and pay, you dont have health insurance either.
Your employer sounds like the latter..........
If you have enough employees and they will all take a stand,,,then do it. Don't accept not being enrolled as contractors because you are not contractors - you are employees. Just dont be suprised when the employees you thought would stand together back out when the time comes to confront the bosses...... |
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tua111111
Joined: 20 Apr 2010
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| Posted: Fri Apr 15, 2011 7:08 am Post subject: |
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| OculisOrbis wrote: |
Yes, everyone must be enrolled pension (except South Africans - it's optional for them).
If your employer is trustworthy, they will enroll you as an employee and pay their share.
If they are cheap-ass scammers, they will claim you are an independent contractor so they dont have to contribute anything and you are responsible to enroll yourself and make the full contribution on your own. They also get out out contributing to your health insurance by doing this and make it your resposibility to enroll yourself and pay double what you should be paying. If you dont enroll yourself and pay, you dont have health insurance either.
Your employer sounds like the latter..........
If you have enough employees and they will all take a stand,,,then do it. Don't accept not being enrolled as contractors because you are not contractors - you are employees. Just dont be suprised when the employees you thought would stand together back out when the time comes to confront the bosses...... |
There's seven of us, and we are united. Like I said, screw over the government, but don't take money from us as well.
Just looking for the pdfs to print out for my bosses in addition to the calculations we made about what is owed to us because of the extra tax they are taking out from our paychecks (we're at 3.3% tax rate). |
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OculisOrbis
Joined: 17 Jul 2006
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| Posted: Fri Apr 15, 2011 7:42 am Post subject: |
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Didnt I mention that when they screw you by saying youre independent contractors and not paying your health or pension,,,,your tax rate also automatically becomes 3.3% instead of the approx 2% it should be (depending on your salary)?
Your employer is definitely the latter of my original examples - the cheap-ass scammer. You have no other option than taking a stand against your employer - the pension, tax and health offices give passive approval to this scam by unscrupulous employers. Either that, or suck it up and pay double and have no health insurance.
If youre all together in it, then you and your co-workers have no other choice than to tell your employers to be honest and tell the pension, health and tax offices that you are employees and they must enroll you and pay their share or you will all quit and leave them with no teachers.
This is where I said all the teachers that you thought were standing in solidarity with you will back out..........
Good luck.
The only documents you will find are ones that say employees must get what I mentioned above and that independent contractors absolve employers of their responsibilities leaving you with the enrollment and double payment for health and pension as well as higher taxes to yourselves. What you need is the legal definitions of employee and independent contractor - and to my knowledge, they dont exist. That's why CDI is in court right now fighting a lawsuit from former employees that will help define just that. Currently, if your employer says you are contractors (even though you are employees), the tax, health and pension offices will just agree with them. No questions asked. |
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Sinnerman
Joined: 19 Feb 2011
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| Posted: Fri Apr 15, 2011 10:52 am Post subject: |
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My brother was getting shafted out of the pension as well as all the other teachers at his hagwon. After completion of his contract, he went to the pension office and filed the paper work. As a result of the school not paying into it, my brother did not need to pay his portion, but the school had to pay both their portion as well as his.
If you aren't enrolled in the healthcare, get on it now. Never be stuck without insurance. |
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ontheway
Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Somewhere under the rainbow...
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| Posted: Sat Apr 16, 2011 3:34 am Post subject: Re: Is Pension Mandatory? |
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| tua111111 wrote: |
Our contracts states we are employees and it mentions enrollment into National Healthcare and NPS in it.
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This is the key to your situation. There is no contoversy. Unlike the CDI case which is being litigated, your contract says you are an employee and that you should be enrolled in pension and national health insurance. So, just go down to the offices of each of these agencies and report your school. Your boss need not know which one of his employees did it. The representatives of these offices should contact your school and take care of the rest.
You may have to file your Korean income tax return to get back your overpayment of income tax. You should be using the NTS site for your withholding. |
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RMNC
Joined: 21 Jul 2010
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| Posted: Sat Apr 16, 2011 4:29 am Post subject: |
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Yes.
The CDI thing was that they were trying to cheat the system by registering everyone as a contractor instead of an employee, but still on an E-2 visa. Contractors don't require pension, but E-2s do, so it's a big court case to decide which side of the law CDI was on. They're probably going to lose, though. |
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rollthadice4
Joined: 10 May 2011
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| Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2011 6:31 pm Post subject: no |
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I need to bump this thread because I am in the same situation. I am American and I just had an interview and they said that I would not get the National Pension (and that I would get private health insurance fully paid for instead of 50/50 public health insurance).
I did not even know about the National Pension until the interview. It sounds like I should not take the job without being enrolled. Is this accurate? What am I really losing out on here? I am also worried that this private insurance might suck and just be a way of getting out of paying for decent public healthcare.
Everything else about the job interview seemed legitimate and pretty standard.
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SeoulNate
Joined: 04 Jun 2010
Location: Hyehwa
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| Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2011 6:56 pm Post subject: Re: no |
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| rollthadice4 wrote: |
I need to bump this thread because I am in the same situation. I am American and I just had an interview and they said that I would not get the National Pension (and that I would get private health insurance fully paid for instead of 50/50 public health insurance).
I did not even know about the National Pension until the interview. It sounds like I should not take the job without being enrolled. Is this accurate? What am I really losing out on here? I am also worried that this private insurance might suck and just be a way of getting out of paying for decent public healthcare.
Everything else about the job interview seemed legitimate and pretty standard.
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all private insurance sucks in Korea. They are forms of supplemental insurance for people who fall outside of what is normally covered by NHIC.
Do not take the job if they flat out tell you that pension is off the table. In and of itself, you will be losing about 120,000 won per month on the pension and taxes, but the bigger issue is that they will most certainly try and screw you at any other junction that they can. No pension = shady workplace |
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SCAshley
Joined: 15 Nov 2010
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| Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2011 7:23 pm Post subject: Re: no |
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| rollthadice4 wrote: |
I need to bump this thread because I am in the same situation. I am American and I just had an interview and they said that I would not get the National Pension (and that I would get private health insurance fully paid for instead of 50/50 public health insurance).
I did not even know about the National Pension until the interview. It sounds like I should not take the job without being enrolled. Is this accurate? What am I really losing out on here? I am also worried that this private insurance might suck and just be a way of getting out of paying for decent public healthcare.
Everything else about the job interview seemed legitimate and pretty standard.
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With the pension, you're losing free money! Pension is 9% of your income-you pay 4.5% and your employer pays 4.5%. For example, if you're making 2 million a month, that's 90,000 that they take out and 90,000 that they match. At the end of you 12 month contract, that's 1,080,000 (roughly $1000 USD) that your school would have contributed over the year (plus the 1,080,000 you put in). If they don't give you pension, they're screwing you out of a nice chunk of change! It benefits some people (who aren't eligible for the refund) to have their schools skip out on it, but not if you're American! Plus, like other have said, they'll try to screw you out of other stuff too... 
Last edited by SCAshley on Mon Jul 18, 2011 7:54 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Feloria
Joined: 02 Sep 2006
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| Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2011 7:43 pm Post subject: |
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I totally agree with the previous two posters.
The National Pension Scheme is available to citizens of certain countries because of a special co-operative relationship that Korea has with said countries (I can't think of the actual term.)
In other words, the Korean government WANTS those eligible to benefit from the pension system.
So you might want to think twice before taking that job. |
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Armin_Tamzarian
Joined: 28 Jun 2011
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| Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2011 12:27 am Post subject: |
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| I'm in a similar situation with my hagwon but I am finishing as of August 31st. Should I wait and enroll once I've finished with them or should I enroll when I get my next pay (Aug. 5th) and put up with any of the backlash for the rest of the month I'm there? I have all my proof (contracts, paystubs and bankbooks) that I think NPS would need. Is there any risk with waiting to enroll after I finish the contract? |
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Allthechildrenareinsane
Joined: 23 Jun 2011
Location: Lost in a Roman wilderness of pain
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| Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2011 4:11 am Post subject: |
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| Armin_Tamzarian wrote: |
| I'm in a similar situation with my hagwon but I am finishing as of August 31st. Should I wait and enroll once I've finished with them or should I enroll when I get my next pay (Aug. 5th) and put up with any of the backlash for the rest of the month I'm there? I have all my proof (contracts, paystubs and bankbooks) that I think NPS would need. Is there any risk with waiting to enroll after I finish the contract? |
This is the same decision I had to make w/ my current employer. After some consideration I decided it was probably better to wait, if only for the possibility that if they're contacted by the pension office after I file my claim and I'm still employed w/ them, there's a strong chance I might get fired as a punitive measure on their part. I figured it was better to just play it cool at work and wait till a day or two before my contract expires to visit the pension office.
I believe that there's no risk, in the sense of not being able to file a claim for your unpaid pension, if you wait till after your current contract expires. As long as you have all of the required docs, I think you should be fine. |
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rollthadice4
Joined: 10 May 2011
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| Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2011 7:11 am Post subject: |
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Thanks SeoulNate, SCAshley, and Feloria; it seems pretty clear that I will not be taking this job.
Armin_Tamzarian and Allthechildrenareinsane, does your contract stipulate a 2% tax rate and say the pension is included? If not it seems like a problem, no? |
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Armin_Tamzarian
Joined: 28 Jun 2011
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| Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2011 10:04 am Post subject: |
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| My contracts said nothing about any tax rate or pension. It stated that insurance would be provided with the cost split 50/50. In fact when I brought up the pension my boss used the fact that it is not in my contract to say that I don't get pension. |
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