Korean Job Discussion Forums

[RACETRAITOR]

For the past few weeks the wife and I have been travelling around Seoul looking for a new place to live. It's been complicated because most real estate agencies have been closed a lot recently at hours when they should be open. Still odd that all you need to do to avoid the tax collectors is stay closed for a few weeks.

We found out it's some sort of tax audit season or something, and these places close so the tax collectors can't come to their offices. My first impression of this was that all the closed places were run by crooks, so if we found an open place it must be more honest because they're not cooking their books or whatever, thus not afraid of the tax collectors.

We were sitting in one place while the agent was calling around seeing where he could take us, when they got a call that tax collectors were in the area. They quickly closed up shop.

We went on to the next neighbourhood and found a friendly real estate agent who had her young daughters in the office. We mentioned the tax collectors and she closed up quickly and took us to see some places.

She told us basically the tax collectors drive around looking for open real estate offices, and if they find one, they will issue a fine that's around 7 million won, and the agency won't be allowed to do business for 40 days. It sounds more like a punishment than a tax. Hell, it sounds more like some sort of cat-and-mouse game to keep the tax collectors amused than anything. It makes no sense at all.

Anyway, moral of the story is don't go apartment-shopping in July.