Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Taylormade]

I've been at my current public school for ten months. Yesterday they informed me that they haven't been deducting income tax, and that they'll need to deduct a lump sum of 940,000 won from my January pay. Understandably I'm not pleased about this. This kind of screw up happens too often here. It's a lot of money. I checked my contract to see what rate of tax we pay but it's not stated. Last I heard it was something like 3.5% of our income. Can anyone clarify this? Public schools at times can be as shady as hokwons in their financial shenanigans. I just want to make sure I'm not being screwed over here.

Thanks in advance,
Taylormade

[YTMND]

[Taylormade]

I get my pay receipt each month. There are several things deducted. It's naturally all in Korea, and I just assumed that one of the deductions was tax.

[JustinC]

Bummer. I wouldn't say shady just incompetent.

Deductions are for (off the top of my head, I don't have a payslip to hand) tax, meals, medical, pension.

You could check with someone out of the school who can translate your payslip. If the school isn't pulling a fast one (it isn't a hagwon) then the money was never really yours anyway. Eh, whaddayagonnado?

[Rutherford]

Is it your first year at a public school? Are you American? If so you can get out of paying taxes but there is some paperwork involved.

There is a government website (it's in Korean and I don't remember the address) that tracks your possible deductions. Things like medical expenses and credit card purchases will show up there automatically. It's a little strange that a government office has that information but it made filing taxes easier.

I also paid my taxes lump-sum at the end of the year and it was around 500,000 won so make sure you sort out your deductions.

[fustiancorduroy]

[edwardcatflap]

[No_hite_pls]

There are two things in life you can't get out of; death and taxes.

[Wildbore]

In the new year, you can retrieve your "certificate of income" from the tax office which shows your reported income and taxes remitted to the tax office. If you employer deducted more than they remitted, you are owed a refund. So check that out.

[warmachinenkorea]

This happened to my wife and I 2010-2011 school year. We are American and were excempt from paying taxes the first two years.

Our third year came along and in Feb our pay checks were a little ovr 1,000,000 won short. When we inquired why our checks were so light both our schools explanied, that we didn't pay taxes the first two years so no one thougt to deduct taxes for the third year. So they just took what was due them.

It sucks but happens more often than I think we realize. It happend, to some degree, in our little rural town every year.

[schwa]

Similar experience. Most years I get a little back but a couple years ago the tax dept made some mid-year adjustments that caught my public school admin offguard & I got dinged for well over a million. It was legit.

[FriendlyDaegu]

Yep, a couple years ago they cancelled a huge deduction allowed to foreign workers, 30% of income, IIRC. My taxes doubled in 2010 because of that.

[fustiancorduroy]

[ttompatz]

AS in independent contractor your withholding rate is 3.3%.
Your ACTUAL rate of taxes due will depend on your gross earning and deductions. Your advantage is that you are allowed some deductions that an "employee" doesn't get.

At the end of the day however you pay taxes according to the SAME scale as an employee on your taxable income.

OP:
on a taxable income of 24million krw per year (2m per month) your total tax bill should be about 1.7% of your gross income over the year.

If you are from one of the countries that is entitled to a tax holiday for 2 years then get the paperwork done to save your taxes. If you are Canadian you don't get the tax holiday so you pay the tax. If you over pay the taxes then you can file for a refund of overpaid taxes next March.

.

[edwardcatflap]