JongnoGuru
Joined: 25 May 2004
Location: peeing on your doorstep
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 Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2005 11:49 am Post subject: |
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| endo wrote: |
Thanks for the response Jongno Guru, but I heard a totally conflicting view when I sent home money last week.
I use KB Bank and the guy said (through the girl who was interpreting for me) that I was only able to send a mazimum of $10 million WON per year.
So was the guy misinformed?
Thanks for any help you can offer. |
Okay, you left that dollar $ign in there just to confuse me, right Endo? 
Was the guy misinformed? Perhaps he was not. That is, perhaps he was not misinformed about the limit on random, undocumented, unrelated-to-contracted-salary F/X remittances... Perhaps he was not, in that narrow sense.
I think there's an important distinction not being made or grasped here -- neither by you nor the banker (nor a couple posters who've PM-ed me asking the very same thing) -- between:
(a) this "one-size-fits-all" 10-mil. won/year remittance limit that seemingly applies to every man, woman and beast in the Republic, regardless of who they are, how much they earn, etc., etc.,
and,
(b) the government-stipulated portion (used to be 66%, maybe it still is) of every foreigner's contracted salary, which they can legally remit overseas.
In all probability, (b) is going to be an amount far greater than (a).
Let's assume that "Mr. Smith" earns a salary of 2.0 million won/month, and he starts working at his new job in January. Each pay day, Mr. Smith goes to the bank were his salary is automatically deposited, and he remits 66% of it, or 1.32 million won, to his foreign bank account back home. Doing this each month, by July he has remitted 9.24 million won.
In August, Mr. Smith attempts to remit his usual 1.32 million won, but in so doing he exceeds the dreaded 10 million won/year limit. Suddenly, the lights flicker, alarm bells go off, and armed police guards spring into action, taekwondo-ing Mr. Smith to the floor, knocking out two of his teeth, and busting his nose as well, which bleeds prettily down his permanent-press cotton/polyester dress shirt.
Next we see of Mr. Smith, he's on MBC News -- well, his jacket is, anyway, as he's got it hiked up over his head in that "Hey, check it out! I'm the Headless Horseman!" shtick that all Korean criminals pull in a moment of comedic levity whenever the TV news cameras are rolling. (Or is it the "Nutty Ostrich Dance"? One of the two.)
Hold on. That's not right. There is no 10 million won limit on these remittances. So, Mr. Smith continues on till December, legally remitting a grand total of almost 16 million won for the year. And guess what? He can (probably) safely exchange and carry out another 5 ~ 10 million won in "travel expenses" when he leaves the country. That's where the 10-million-won/year limit comes in. That's the F/X allowance they grant to all & sundry -- to students, housewives, baseball stars, people's grandmas, whoever.
You have a pulse & a passport? Then you qualify for the 10 mil/year. You have a job and a stamped contract to prove it? Then you get the 10 mil./year PLUS 66% of your contracted salary. But that requires documentation, explanations, setting up procedures with a single branch, educating the staff, etc. At least that's what I had to do.
Regardless of all my assumptions here, common sense alone tells us that a 10 million won (or US$10k) per-year limit on every foreigner would be ludicrous. That's not an insignificant amount, but some ex-pats earn and save comparatively tremendous sums... And to tell them all they could send home is US$833 a month????  (10 mil./12 months) Not bloody likely, is it? |
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