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ontheway
Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Somewhere under the rainbow...
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 Posted: Fri Apr 27, 2012 9:26 am Post subject: |
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| Blanca wrote: |
Oh I see what you mean, ontheway.
Yeah that's pretty much my plan - the problem is claiming to know exactly what I should be paid. Payments for the water and maintenance costs for my flat are deducted at source, as well as one or two other bits that I can't remember, and obviously these will change month to month. I know I should be paid around 1.9mil per month after tax, pension and health insurance but I've only got the boss's word as to what these other costs should be.
I'm going to press the issue of getting a payslip because I may well need it when I get home anyway - you know what the tax people at home can be like if you've been away earning and have no way to prove it. If he refuses I'll be very suspicious. If it is indeed the law, and he has nothing to hide, he surely wouldn't mind giving me a payslip.
Is there a way of checking my pension, tax and insurance are being paid without the boss knowing I'm checking? |
Yes. You can call up the Pension and Health Insurance offices and ask if you've been registered. Try to verify the amount of your monthly payment as well as if any payments have been made - although, in your case it may be too soon. No payments may be due or past due yet, even if you have been properly registered since you've only been here since March. You will have to give them your ARC number and info about your employer - see the FAQs for phone numbers.
Your Pension withholding should be 4.5%, your boss should match, so 9% should be paid in monthly. This is approximate since it's done by brackets, and your first partial month is ususally not counted for Pension. (Every month that is covered, even partial months, you pay the full amount.)
Health Insurance rates have changed a few times. 3% of your pay is a good rough estimate. Your boss and you each pay half of the actual bill.
No income tax payments are due for you yet, so the Tax office will probably not know that you exist, but the correct withholding amount can be found here:
http://www.nts.go.kr/eng/help/help_52.asp
(plus the local income tax which is 1/10 of the National Income withholding tax).
You should make a pro-forma statement like this standard form:
Income Statement for the Month of April 2012 for Blanca
Salary ........................................ w 2,100,000
Income Tax ....................................... 28,390
Pension ............................................. 94,500
Health Insurance ................................ 63,000
Utilities and other ............................... ______
Total Deductions ............................... 185,890
Net Pay ......................................... 1,914,110
Amount received ........................... 1,800,000
Discrepancy ..................................... 114,110
Then try to confirm the amounts with the Pension and Health Ins offices. Fill in any other amounts known by you for utilities or whatever. It is quite possible that your boss is using a 3.3% tax rate or something other than the Tax table that he should be using.
When you are finished, you will come up with a descrepancy. If it is a significant amount to you, (over 10,000 won for example) you can then ask your boss using your statement so that you have an informed specific question. You boss will be less likely to see this as you being distrustful and more likely see it as a chance to explain something that has been overlooked or calculated differently for a legitimate reason - unless, of course, the discrepancy is large and your boss is cheating you.
Last edited by ontheway on Fri Apr 27, 2012 9:33 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Blanca
Joined: 19 Apr 2012
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| Posted: Fri Apr 27, 2012 9:32 am Post subject: |
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| Thanks for the help, ontheway. Those figures do fact add up. If memory serves correctly (I'd have to check with the bank to be absolutely sure), the actual amount received was 1,846,000, which after a water and maintenance seems about right, maybe a little low by 20k or so, but that isn't a lot in the grand scheme of things. |
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ontheway
Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Somewhere under the rainbow...
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| Posted: Fri Apr 27, 2012 9:35 am Post subject: |
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| Blanca wrote: |
| Thanks for the help, ontheway. Those figures do fact add up. If memory serves correctly (I'd have to check with the bank to be absolutely sure), the actual amount received was 1,846,000, which after a water and maintenance seems about right, maybe a little low by 20k or so, which isn't a lot in the grand scheme of things. |
You're welcome.
You should still check with the Pension and Health ins offices.
Also, your boss is likely using a higher tax rate. Most schools overwithhold.
If you're from the US, Canada, or one of the other countries with an agreement with Korea you can get your Pension payments refunded when you leave, even if you only stay a few months, if your boss has actually paid them to the Pension office. |
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Troglodyte
Joined: 06 Dec 2009
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| Posted: Fri Apr 27, 2012 10:12 am Post subject: |
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| northway wrote: |
| Troglodyte wrote: |
| You've already told us that the boss is a nice guy and treated you well so far. Most of the bad hogwons are easy to spot in the first month. If you're being treated well so far, chances are your boss is not a scheming jerk who is trying to rip you off. |
By no means am I telling the OP to do anything rash here, but one of the worst rip off stories I've heard was from a very trusting guy whose hagwon owner treated him extremely well (on the surface). The guy would take him out to dinner, bring him to his family's place in the country on holidays, and generally seemed like a good guy. That said, he was having extra money deducted from his paycheck for bills (only taking home about 1.6 from 2.2; even with high maintenance fees, etc., that's way too high). Ultimately, the boss told him he wasn't being re-signed a week before he was supposed to take his summer vacation home that he had negotiated for his re-signing. Point being: I wouldn't assume that because the guy comes across as being kind that he's not pulling a fast one on you. |
He's only deducting 300,000 Won from her paycheck. If he's paying her utilities bills along with normal deductions, then either he's being honest with her, or he's a very underachieving thief. After utilities and legit deductions, how of that 300k could he possibly be skimming?
Also, just because he's not used to filling out pay slips doesn't mean that he's doing something underhanded. Small business owners frequently do things informally. He might just have no idea how to do it because he hasn't had to do it before. She can easily check whether he's paying into pension, or whether he intends to. Even if he's not, you need to ask him to before you assume he's not paying into it to cheat you. Many Koreans prefer not to pay into pension (or other taxes if they can get away with it). He might not know that you can get it back later.
On a related topic, if you do a midnight run and don't return to Korea, it's very hard to collect the pension deposit. You can only collect it after you're finished working here or just before if you can show that you're finishing and that you have a ticket out of the country. So.... if you're not paying into it now, and you think you might run, then wait until you know for sure that you're not going to run. Otherwise you'll just pay into it and then leave without collecting it. |
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ontheway
Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Somewhere under the rainbow...
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| Posted: Fri Apr 27, 2012 10:22 am Post subject: |
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| You can collect your Pension even when making a midnight run if the money has been paid in. You don't have to work your full contract period to be eligible to collect Pension. You do have to show an airplane ticket and you can't collect if your boss didn't pay, although if the Pension office can collect the money you can eventually collect. |
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Troglodyte
Joined: 06 Dec 2009
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| Posted: Fri Apr 27, 2012 10:34 am Post subject: |
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| ontheway wrote: |
| You can collect your Pension even when making a midnight run if the money has been paid in. You don't have to work your full contract period to be eligible to collect Pension. You do have to show an airplane ticket and you can't collect if your boss didn't pay, although if the Pension office can collect the money you can eventually collect. |
True, but they don't just hand it to you over the counter. You have to request it in advance. If you do that, there's a good chance they'll call the school to confirm that you really are finishing the job when you leave the country. Plus you have wait a bit to get the money. So yes, you can collect it but you run the risk of the boss knowing that you're running, or you have to work another week or so for free before you do your run. If they don't call your boss right away to confirm then you might get out of the country before he figures it out. From abroad you could get the money via internet banking. It's a risk though. |
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northway
Joined: 05 Jul 2010
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| Posted: Fri Apr 27, 2012 10:38 am Post subject: |
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| Troglodyte wrote: |
| northway wrote: |
| Troglodyte wrote: |
| You've already told us that the boss is a nice guy and treated you well so far. Most of the bad hogwons are easy to spot in the first month. If you're being treated well so far, chances are your boss is not a scheming jerk who is trying to rip you off. |
By no means am I telling the OP to do anything rash here, but one of the worst rip off stories I've heard was from a very trusting guy whose hagwon owner treated him extremely well (on the surface). The guy would take him out to dinner, bring him to his family's place in the country on holidays, and generally seemed like a good guy. That said, he was having extra money deducted from his paycheck for bills (only taking home about 1.6 from 2.2; even with high maintenance fees, etc., that's way too high). Ultimately, the boss told him he wasn't being re-signed a week before he was supposed to take his summer vacation home that he had negotiated for his re-signing. Point being: I wouldn't assume that because the guy comes across as being kind that he's not pulling a fast one on you. |
He's only deducting 300,000 Won from her paycheck. If he's paying her utilities bills along with normal deductions, then either he's being honest with her, or he's a very underachieving thief. After utilities and legit deductions, how of that 300k could he possibly be skimming?
Also, just because he's not used to filling out pay slips doesn't mean that he's doing something underhanded. Small business owners frequently do things informally. He might just have no idea how to do it because he hasn't had to do it before. She can easily check whether he's paying into pension, or whether he intends to. Even if he's not, you need to ask him to before you assume he's not paying into it to cheat you. Many Koreans prefer not to pay into pension (or other taxes if they can get away with it). He might not know that you can get it back later. |
Did I say the guy was being shady? My point was just that no matter how buddy-buddy your hagwon boss might be willing to act, that doesn't mean you should assume he isn't screwing you with a smile. |
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