Korean Job Discussion Forums

[wackakapow]

I've just finished amending a contract. More for practice than anything and to see what they'd do. In it I specified I'd like to know what the income tax rate is (and that I thought it was supposed to be around 2%). The recruiter responded that it was 3.3%, which I've seen stated as too high on many an amended contract in the contract posting forum.

Can someone with a little more experience than me (see: lurkage only) point me to a legitimate site stating the true tax rate so I can call the recruiter on this one? I slogged through the Korean Taxation PDF but wasn't coming up with anything close to what I've seen stated on the boards or by the recruiter.

I know it's not a lot of money, but I'd like to possibly open the door to some other things they're trying to pull my leg on ("no new teacher makes more than 2.2mil/krw" and "salaries are never negotiable," "contract amending is heavily frowned upon etc.",) so they know I've at least done some research. I'd ditch them entirely but they are coming up with a lot of jobs for us... however, if they're never going to come up with anything over 2.2mil I might have to simply move on.

Thanks for any help!

[highdials5]

http://www.nts.go.kr/eng/help/help_52.asp?top_code=H001&sub_code=HS05&ssub_code=HSE2

[TheUrbanMyth]

Let's look at a salary of 2500,000

The monthly withholding tax according to the site is 51,180

Now 2,500,000/100 is 25000 or 1% of above salary. Multiply that by 2 and you get 50,000 which is very close.

As you can see it's considerably closer to 2% than 3.3%.

[wackakapow]

Thanks, this is great.

[wackakapow]

The email has been sent. What are bets on the response? Continued denial? No response at all? Excuses?

[highdials5]

[wackakapow]

The recruiter has replied with the outrageously lame response of "I've been recruiting for X years and this is what all the schools do, so I can't help you", basically telling us that the status quo is law, not the law. Then, of course, she says "the school is waiting for [our] decision" after providing no answers to any of our questions that our decision hinged on. We still have no idea how many of our contract amendments the school agreed to.

hidials5, how did you eventually come about finding a school willing to pay the proper tax if they're going stonewall us even though we have the legal documentation to prove them wrong? Obviously we'll probably be skipping this one.

Why do I get the feeling someone will reply with "Welcome to Korea"?

[highdials5]

[wackakapow]

Hilarious.

She's now done the exact thing your recruiter did; how unpredictable. Sent me a different FAQ PDF pointing to the the "independent contractor" page. It's as if simply showing me that the figure 3.3% exists somewhere in there will convince me of its applicability to myself. And once again, funnily enough, directly beneath it is the paragraph stating that teachers considered employees will be taxed by the Simplified Tax Withholding Table. It also states that we can't be considered private contractors.

So she's sent me all the same information I just sent her back to me and has said "See! That's why!"

Amazing.

[highdials5]