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Korean Job Discussion Forums
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edwardcatflap
Joined: 22 Mar 2009
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 Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2012 9:13 am Post subject: |
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I appreciate your concern as well as your more thoughtful tone, but, to the best of my knowledge, I have filed my taxes properly. My income summary that was generated by my employer and was submitted to the national tax office listed my full, correct income for the year. It did not omit or otherwise reduce any of my income. The Korean government knows my exact earnings for the year. However, I ended up paying less than 1 percent in taxes last year. I attribute this to the fact that I used a professional accountant to file my taxes this year and last. In previous years, I got much smaller tax returns even though my salary was much lower and my tax rate higher. So, the accountant I use (and I must point out that his office handles the taxes for many of the teachers at a large hagwon chain, not Chungdam, but just as large, and gets them similar rates of return). So, unless my accountant is doing something illegal with my income statement, even though he runs a large company with dozens of employees and has been in business for over 20 years, then the amount of taxes I pay is correct.
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So you honestly think that just by employing a professional accountant you can legitimately pay 1% tax on an income of over 8 million a month, while others are paying 12-15%? You think your accountant has discovered this amazing legal loophole that allows normal working people to get out of paying nearly all their income tax? You're more naive than I thought |
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fustiancorduroy
Joined: 12 Jan 2007
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| Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2012 6:34 pm Post subject: |
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| edwardcatflap wrote: |
So you honestly think that just by employing a professional accountant you can legitimately pay 1% tax on an income of over 8 million a month, while others are paying 12-15%? You think your accountant has discovered this amazing legal loophole that allows normal working people to get out of paying nearly all their income tax? You're more naive than I thought |
As an independent contractor, my tax rate is 3.3 percent. If you or anybody else has a link to a Korean government website saying that I have to pay more than this amount because of my salary, then please do share it. I mean, everybody I've known who works as an independent contractor at many different employers pays 3.3 percent in tax. Always. Isn't this the primary reason to work as an independent contractor? You miss out on being provided health insurance and pension, but you get taxed at a lower rate. Is it possible that all these independent contractors have been paying the improper amount of taxes? Perhaps. But again, as far as I know, I have filed my taxes properly every year I've been here. I paid more taxes in the past and got lower tax returns. Now, using a professional accountant, I pay less taxes while getting higher tax returns. If I owe the Korean government more tax money, then they should have taken additional money when I filed my taxes this year and last. But guess what? They didn't. And I'm certainly not going to go asking them to take more of my money, but I would be willing to do so if necessary.
Last edited by fustiancorduroy on Sat Dec 22, 2012 10:16 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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tanklor1
Joined: 13 Jun 2006
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| Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2012 7:33 pm Post subject: |
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| lemak wrote: |
I had a boss a few years ago who sprang 100 odd report cards on each of us Dec. 24th and said they needed to be completed by Dec. 26th, effectively meaning Christmas would have been spent at home writing lies about what wonderful, polite, diligent, hygienic darlings Min Ju, Min Su, Min Hee, Min Ji numbers 1 thru 25 are.
None of us foreigners were overly religious or gave much of a crap about Christmas, but the audacity of this *beep* to spring a pile of work on what he knew is essentially our biggest holiday created near mutiny. Despite him being quite adamant and threatening about it everyone quickly united, said no, made counter threats about leaving and he rapidly caved and pushed the report cards back a month.
Some of these Korean bosses can't stand the fact that most of us relish our lives outside work far more than we do brown nosing up their stinky corn holes. |
Pushed it back a month? Wow! Not really a sense of urgency there then is it? |
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big_fella1
Joined: 08 Dec 2005
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| Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2012 1:03 am Post subject: |
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Two issues here:
Any company that has so little regard for the culture of its employees that it has them work on Christmas is not a place I would want to work. In Australia I gave my muslim employees time off at Ramadam and my jewish employees time off at yom kippur and if I had any Korean employees they could have had leave for Sonal and chuseok as well.
Now regarding this IC business if you work in one place and have a boss you are not an independent contractor. A lack of enforcement is not the same as something being legal and a crackdown could happen at any time.
Finally for the IC's understand this 3.3% is a withholding amount it is not your tax rate. You are required to file taxes by the end of May. source[www.nts.go.kr]
As an IC you miss deductions such as your credit/debit card spend, but expenses such as work use of your phone, your car, books, and some entertainment expenses can be taken from your pre tax income. National pension contributions of 9% should be made entirely by you however only on a maximum of 3million won per month. National health is the one that hurts you should be paying around 6% of you entire income.
On 10 million per month working in one place you wouldn't have much in the way of legitimate expenses so you would definately pay more than 3.3%.
If you haven't been filing your taxes in May you will have a long wait to get an F5 and I do believe foreigners will be the first targeted if there were to be a tax crackdown.
Sorry I can't give more links but this post is from my phone. I'll update if I get home tonight.
Merry Christmas |
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TheUrbanMyth
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: Retired
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| Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2012 3:41 pm Post subject: |
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| fustiancorduroy wrote: |
Edward,
I appreciate your concern as well as your more thoughtful tone, but, to the best of my knowledge, I have filed my taxes properly. My income summary that was generated by my employer and was submitted to the national tax office listed my full, correct income for the year. It did not omit or otherwise reduce any of my income. The Korean government knows my exact earnings for the year. However, I ended up paying less than 1 percent in taxes last year. . |
What about pension? As a IC that's 9% of monthly salary. |
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movybuf
Joined: 01 Jan 2007
Location: Mokdong
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| Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2012 6:25 pm Post subject: |
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| fustiancorduroy wrote: |
Edward,
I appreciate your concern as well as your more thoughtful tone, but, to the best of my knowledge, I have filed my taxes properly. My income summary that was generated by my employer and was submitted to the national tax office listed my full, correct income for the year. It did not omit or otherwise reduce any of my income. The Korean government knows my exact earnings for the year. However, I ended up paying less than 1 percent in taxes last year. I attribute this to the fact that I used a professional accountant to file my taxes this year and last. In previous years, I got much smaller tax returns even though my salary was much lower and my tax rate higher. So, the accountant I use (and I must point out that his office handles the taxes for many of the teachers at a large hagwon chain, not Chungdam, but just as large, and gets them similar rates of return). So, unless my accountant is doing something illegal with my income statement, even though he runs a large company with dozens of
employees and has been in business for over 20 years, then the amount of taxes I pay is correct.
As for my friend, he works for Chungdam. I don't. Honestly, I don't know how much he pays in taxes each year. Maybe he pays morethan I suggested above. But if he files his taxes correctly, my estimate should be reasonably accurate. |
Can you Pm me some contact details for your tax accountant? I've been an Independent contractor for years and I always end up paying more at the end of the tax year. |
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Weigookin74
Joined: 26 Oct 2009
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| Posted: Mon Dec 24, 2012 5:40 am Post subject: |
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| Nope, not me. |
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