How to Claim Your Income Tax Return in Korea: Foreigner Guide

The easiest way for foreigners to check income tax payments and claim their tax return in Korea is through SamJjeomSam (삼쩜삼). With simplified Kakao verification, you can easily claim your income tax returns.

Introduction

There are a couple of different ways to check your Korean income tax and file returns. Normally, Koreans check their income tax through the app ‘Home tax ‘. However, foreigners will have difficulty with authentication (공동인증서 ). You will find that you cannot verify your information either because of your ID number or because you do not have a legal Korean name.

Thankfully, SamJjeomSam (삼쩜삼) uses Kakao to verify your identity so as long as you have your Kakao account setup properly you should not have any issues. With that in mind, you do need to be a legal resident with a valid ARC, Korean bank account, and phone number for your Kakao account to be used as verification.

Click Here for an article explaining how to set up Kakao Pay. If you already use Kakao Pay, all of the necessary information is connected to your Kakao account.

Once you have your Kakao account all set up, you can use your laptop or a desktop computer to access SamJjeomSam (삼쩜삼).

Step 1:

To access the Website, click the button below

Scroll down to select 조회하기. And then click Continue 카카오계정으로 계속하기. At this time, a new page will appear on the screen to log in to Kakao. You will proceed with inserting your phone number and password to log in.

Step 2:

Check your phone. Text messages will be sent to your Kakao.

Select “Yes, I want to log in” to complete authentication. And then check “Accept All” and then select “Accept and Continue”.

Step 3:

Enter your name as shown on your ARC card and your resident number. Then, select “Continue”. Check the box to agree with all of the terms and conditions, and then select 간편인증하기

Step 4:

Check the message sent to your Kakao then select agree to all and continue.

Then, select your phone company, enter your phone number, and select Verify > Register

Set a 6-digit password and re-enter.

Select your bank and enter your account number. Then, check the box to agree > Request Verification.

They will send 1won to the registered bank account, check the sender’s name and enter it, then select confirm.

Step 5:

Next, it will take you back to the income tax calculator. Choose Check. Then, wait for them to conduct the test. Once it has finished, 완료했습니다 will appear, select it to complete the search. The screen will display your name and last 5 years of income. Yes, mine is a round zero. If you have any tax returns to claim, you can choose next. Then, it will transfer your returns to your bank account.

If you have tax claims, it will show the name of the business that declared your income tax. If you do not want your tax declared for visa purposes, you can contact your boss and ask them to remove the declaration for you.

My friend got her tax declared without knowing. Luckily, after checking and speaking with her boss, the declaration was removed. For people who work more than their visa allows, even if they did it before regulations changed, removing the tax declaration is necessary to renew your visa.

I hope this article can help foreign residents in Korea. If you are working part-time or full-time and you have to pay taxes, and if they are filed properly, you might get a tax return. It may not be much, however, it can help you with some essential items that you need. Not many foreigners know about it, however, this is one of our rights in Korea.

I hope that this article can lead you to a successful tax return application.