Monday, June 15, 2015

Some Final notes...playing Taxes?

Well, not exactly PAYING taxes, that's automatically done by your school/Hogwan each month with the deductibles from your paycheck. What I had original though was taxes was actually my 2014 With-held tax credit; the stuff they hold onto from your taxes each year. I was given this form by my school out of the blue and when I first saw it, I was rather surprised that I had to actually deal with Taxes, as that's something the school normally does, but after a little checking up, I found my answer on the subject. Now, I'm not 100% sure about this, but I think after each year in Korea, if you spend longer than a single year, you have to get your with-held tax account sorted; basically a sum of money they give back to you like Taxes back in North America. I first thought this was a very difficult thing to accomplish, the prior teacher, after asking if he knew of this, told me he never had to do such a thing, so I was left in a bit of a pickle. However, I found out soon after, the Tax agency "National Tax Service" does indeed have a foreigner friendly setup, and after quick talk with my Korean friend, found the helpline for foreigners and got everything sorted.

It seemed that the nearest Tax offices was quite a distance away, at least half an hour to 45 minutes by bike; not a heavy challenge, especially I had my trusty mini-bike with me. After finding the location, planning a route wasn't a difficult task, so with a desire to accomplish my mission of sorting this tax thing out, I went about doing my business. Now, long story short, I had originally went out to handle this tax thing a week after I got it, but when I had went that time, I found, since I was still working, that I didn't need to handle it till June 10-30th. Some of the pictures here are from the first and second trip, just to make measure of how to do this should anyone have the same problem in the future.

After a decent bike ride out and around Cheonan, I eventually made it over to the Tax office; a massive building in a neighbouring district of the city that was still expanding. The NTS Building stuck out like a sore thumb, so it was fairly easy to spot once I got closer. After asking the front desk. I was able to get my ticket for my number and made my way into the taxing office; which was little more than an open space with computers lining the walls.

 For a tax office, it was quite packed, the second time I went not so much, which was good fortune, but you can see that it gets quite busy, but the people around the room on their terminals definitely know what to do and they do rather quickly. I was lucky someone could speak English both times, first informing me of the change of date to come as well as finalizing all the information and paperwork I brought to help. Everything is done by the staff, and after inputing the details on the paperwork given to me by the school, I was shown how much tax money I was to receive and be given in the span of two months; one segment paid in July, the second in August before I leave.

 Though this experience wasn't as major as paying Taxes, it was still something I had to handle; it's easy and fairly hassle free to deal with With-held tax issues in Korea, though, if you EVER have to actually PAY taxes out of the blue, talk to your director as soon as possible, because the only thing any foreigner should have to pay is Utilities for their apartment.

 ALSO

I know a lot of people are talking about MERS's, I am letting you know that I am not affected by the MERS case, being in Cheonan, I'm far enough away to have some breathing room, but this sort of thing is just another bad example of how SK dropped the ball on a major issue. I do hope that when I go home I won't have to deal with any sort of quarantine stuff.