Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Koveras]

I didn't do either, and now I can't prove that I spent any money in Korea. Instead of getting a small tax refund, the school is deducting an extra $120 from my final paycheck.

On a side note, can anyone explain the pension refund to me? Are we supposed to get it all back at the end of our contract?

The teachers at my school can't speak english well, so the things they tell me are always vague and easily misunderstood. For example, some things that were in reality friendly suggestions have seemed like threats. Sometimes when something seemed okay they were actually taking my money. Just ruminating.

[OculisOrbis]

its not saving your paper receipts that gets you the deduction, but i suppose it might if you want to deal with all the hassle of proving that theyre yours.

the easy method is to register your cellphone number with the tax office(?) and then when you make a purchase you give your phone number to the retailer. they log the purchase to your phone number and then at tax time, you go to the website and download a summary with the total cash purchases and give it to your employer to use as a deduction. quick, clean, and easy.

Everything you need to know to save yourself some cash with cash receipts:

http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2903760

[OculisOrbis]

Pension refund info. Go here and hit 'english'. Next, on the english page, click 'foreigners and lump sum refund'. Finally, read.

http://www.nps.or.kr/

if you can't read or dont have a computer, call 1355 and talk to them.

[Hyeon Een]

What about with debit and credit cards?

Am I automatically enrolled in the tax-refund thing with these? Or do I need to get an annual receipt from the card companies and submit it to my admin department?

[OculisOrbis]

debit cards/cash cards/atm cards are not part of the service. you have to register online or at your regional tax office to get the card or have it recorded using your phone number.

you dont get a refund for doing this. it records your cash purchases so that you can have a deduction on your income tax which will reduce your tax payment and may result in a refund.

there is a lottery system for people enrolled in the cash receipt system where you can call the cash receipt phone line and see if you won a prize for helping to force retailers to report the earnings. i checked it today - not a winner.

[DAC]

1) find out when exactly the tax year started and ended (from the previous year)
2) tally up your pay stubs from those months.
3) ask your school to give you copies of the docs they submitted to the tax office
4) if your numbers don't add up to theirs, then ask them why the difference.
5) if their answer doesn't make sense, take their doc and your stubs to the tax office (with a helpful Korean who doesn't work at your school).
6) something should either make sense to you, or should be straightened out.

The same thing happened to me at my uni, the school reported double my income to the Nat'l Health Insurance, and they doubled my premium and took out 350,000 won to make up the "difference" between my "actual" income and their estimation of my income for the previous year. Took about 2 months to get our money back.

[ifa79]

So if you use get the cash receipt then do merchants still give you a "cash discount" for not using a credit card? Do they give discounts because of the credit card fees or are they not trying to report their earnings?

I guess there are two ways to save money here.

[OculisOrbis]

[Demophobe]

Check card. Its our equivalent of a debit card, and serves, after proper registration, as a sales receipt recorder.

[beast]

he wrote, " If you can't read..." that's funny!!!