Relocation
Pre-Move Trip
When we go to Korea, we need to do the trip move trip. The first thing we should do is to learn how to communicate with our boss, coworkers and employees better by using modality. When we can use modality, we are able to gather information from the people at work and then we will get help to find the locations, such as where we can get the medical support, where we can get food, where we can go to the grocery stores and where we can find a better department. Understanding modality helps us do things faster efficiently so that we will not get into trouble spending large amount of time on looking for locations.
The most challenging thing that we have to face is to practice eating spicy food before going to Korea. If we are contracted to live in Korea more than one year, we must love spicy food. Otherwise, we will feel life is uninterested in Korea. Probably we need to buy some red pepper and put it in our food and soup if we are ready to make Korean friends or invite them for dinner.
Handling of Household Goods
In Korea, most of housings do not provide household goods unless we live in a hotel or opistel. It is the best to have our major items insured, even though it will not make us feel comfortable travelling. If we will stay in Korea at least two years, we may bring in duty free used household goods in the entry within the first half year of arrival. If we forgot to ship our items, our items have to be shipped within the first half year. Otherwise, we need to purchase new items in Korea. If the items are shipped separately, we need to make a note on the custom forms when we arrive at the airport. In addition, bringing excessive items will be inspected.
Transportation
The city of Seoul has public transportations, such as subway or buses to lessen people’s financial burden. People must use “T money” or “transportation card” to save money for multiple transfers. Each multiple transfers from the initial distance to arrival only cost one transportation, 62 US cents. The Agilent Technology Company will also provide us $ 80 dollars monthly for the transportation. Even though $ 80 dollar seems to have enough to spare, sometimes we may think about to take a taxi for important meetings or the moving costs. There are three types of taxis in Korea:
· General Taxi: Black and blue, starting at 1900. General Taxi is the cheapest fast transportation, and it calculates the distance it takes to arrival. However, it will charge us additional 20 % additional cost if we take it from midnight to 4 a.m.
· Call Taxi: When we call the taxi, we need to negotiate the price before we can get a ride. Usually they set the price high whether it is a short or long distance because of emergency.
· Deluxe Taxies: Black and White, starting at 4000W, the prices increased according to the increased time and distance
(Type of Taxi, 2003)
Temporary Living Expenses
The company only subsidizes the employees’ 2-month department rental, a couple days of hotel and transportation fees when we first come to Korea. Basically we need not to spend money on our housings and transportation the first 2 month of working until we get paid in two months.
Transfer Allowance
When the company is facing financial crisis, it is impossible for the company to provide any employees transfer allowance for personal reasons. For example, the employees are not paid when they need to move to a better department. However, to respect the foreign employees, the company will only provide them an airline ticket to come to Korea and a couple days of hotels night before the foreigners move in a new department as transfer allowance fee. In addition, the employees are paid when they are selected to represent their company in a specific place or meeting.
(PALO ALTO, 2001)
Loss on Sale of Automobile
The Agilent Technologies Inc. is believed not to compensate our loss if we sell our car when they have the temporary pay reduction program. No money is give for loss of automobile coverage. In fact some of your insurance is lost if you buy a vehicle in china or other countries.
Appliance Purchase
No money is given for appliance. As we are provided housings, we need to find a department that has appliance wisely. For instance, before we move in a department, we should choose to live in “opostel” which provides all we need, including a dryer, a stove and so on. When we are in contact, the company will fully pay for us. “Opostel” is also good that it secures our long term contract and the owner is responsible for the maintenance.
Tax Aspects of Relocation
As foreign employees, there are limited amounts of taxation for expatriates. When we get a visa, we are taxed, according to our income and job title. In additional to paying less tax when we have a treaty, the more specialized field of our job we have, the less taxes deduction we are offered
Income is defined as bonuses, wages, benefit and allowances we received as compensation, and the taxable compensation is a requirement for our deductible contributions of our income. There are two different kinds of taxable compensation according to Taxation of expatriate Employees in Korea.
· Wages and income as class A: When earning on property, employers are required to withhold and pay income taxes on monthly and annual basis.
· Salary income depending on source and payment method as class B: we as taxpayers need to file our own individual income return annually and pay income taxes on monthly basis.
(Thornton)
Rental Assistance Program
· Renting in South Korea: If we are planning to live in one area for a long period, we are offered all types of housing contracts base on how much money we are willing to pay for the rent. If we are planning to stay in one area for a short period because of the requirement of working in different areas, we will need a lease. Most short-term rents are costly and they cost us $ 500-600 dollars on monthly basis when we are contracted 3-6 month period.
· Where to look: We can search housing information on the real estate or listings of property website by using Google search engines. If we are offline, the best way to look for housings is to buy a newspaper published from Korea and have a Korean friend to transfer Korean into English. It is the best that if they could give us some recommendations since they have known the local area very well.
· Dealing with Korean real estate agents: When we have no idea where we live, the Korean real estate agents will provide us good recommendations and advices. Since there are a lot of competitions in real estate agents in Seoul city, that the companies will provide us quality of service and discounted price, such as cutting of 10 % of advertising fee. However, going to get help from the real estate agent, we are charged 0.5 % of rental income annually which is a regulation.
There are also two kinds of housing contract in Korea: jeonsei and wolsei
· Jeonsie: Jeonsie means “paid in full.” The tenant has to pay 30%-80% cost to the landlord. The more we pay for the rental fees in advance, the less we pay for the rent on monthly basis.
· Wolsei: Wolsei in contrary we need to make monthly payment instead of giving a large amount to the owners.
We must decide which contract we have to choose. Otherwise, we will be charged extra fee when we decided to renew our contract.
(Helping people abroad)
Sources:
PALO ALTO, C. (2001, April 5). Business Services Industry. Retrieved 12 3, 2008, from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2001_April_5/ai_72796266
Thornton, G. (n.d.). Taxation of expatriate employees in Korea. Retrieved 5 12, 2008, from Daemyung: http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:Xc-ufyqCvbEJ:www.gthk.com.hk/cmstree.GetCmsAsset.do%3FcmsAssetType%3D2%26fileName%3DKorea%2520Expat%2520Tax%2520Guide%2520June%25202008.pdf%26targetId%3D232%26tempId%3D+foreign+employees+to+Tax+Aspects+of+Relocation+in
Helping people abroad. http://www.justlanded.com/. (n.d.). Retrieved 10 12, 2008, from http://www.justlanded.com/
http://www.korea4expats.com/article-types-of-taxis.html (Types of Taxi, 2008)
