Gift Tax in Korea for Your Child: a Ten-Year Ledger App
I was sure that 20 million won from me plus 20 million won from my wife made 40 million won our daughter could receive tax free. I had already moved the first half into her account when I found out that is not how gift tax in Korea works. The 20 million won deduction for a minor covers both parents and all four grandparents together, once every ten years. Not per person. I had used up the whole allowance and thought I was halfway.
That was the moment I started keeping a ledger, first on paper, then as this app, Child Gift Tax Ledger. It records every gift to your child, shows how much of the ten-year allowance is left, calculates the tax as you enter an amount, and puts the filing deadline in your phone calendar. It is for parents in Korea, expats included, who are putting money into a child's account and want to stay on the right side of the rules.
▶ Get it on Google Play (free): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.thefacegood.childgift
The gift tax in Korea mistake almost every parent makes
The rules are short but easy to misread. A minor can receive 20 million won over ten years without tax, and an adult child 50 million. That figure is shared across the whole direct line above the child, so grandparents and parents draw from one pot, not one each. Then, for the tax calculation itself, gifts are aggregated per giver, with a married couple counted as one giver and each set of grandparents counted separately. Two different grouping rules, side by side, is exactly the kind of thing people get wrong on a napkin.
The app records who gave what, separates father, mother, paternal and maternal grandparents, and applies both rules for you: the deduction shared across the line, the aggregation per giver. You do not have to remember which rule is which. You just have to write the gift down.
What is left of the limit is the first thing on screen
Add a child and the home screen answers the only question I ever had: how much can I still give without tax? Gifts older than ten years fall out of the running total on their own, so an old transfer does not keep the limit locked forever, and each entry is marked as either still counting or expired. The ten-year deduction limit stops being an abstraction and becomes a number you can watch go down.
There is also a timeline counted from the child's birthday that shows the years in which the allowance comes back around, and the year it jumps from 20 to 50 million when the child turns 19.
The tax is worked out while you type
Enter a date and an amount and the numbers unfold below in the same order the tax office uses: the combined value of gifts, the allowance, the taxable base, the tax that results, and the discount for reporting on time. If a grandparent is the giver, the 30 percent surcharge for skipping a generation is added automatically. When a child receives stock in several instalments, tax already paid on earlier gifts is credited so the same money is not taxed twice.
I deliberately did not show a single big result number. Tax you cannot trace is tax you cannot trust, and I wanted to be able to check each line against the official worksheet.
Two things I rebuilt from scratch
The first version was going to connect to bank accounts and fill itself in. Then I read the reviews of an existing app that did that. "Cannot connect to the tax office", "my old filings show as zero", one star, two stars. Depend on someone else's system and every change on their side breaks your app, and users blame you. So this app connects to nothing. You type the entries yourself. Less convenient, and it does not break.
The second rebuild was the calculation. My first pass subtracted the deduction twice when both parents gave in the same window, which overstated the tax. A unit test caught it, not the screen; you cannot see that kind of bug by looking. That case is now pinned down by a test that runs with every build.
Deadlines go to the calendar, not to a notification
The filing deadline is three months counted from the end of the month in which the gift was made. My first plan was an app notification. Then I learned that Android quietly clears scheduled reminders from apps you have not opened in months, and a ledger you open a few times a year is precisely that kind of app.
So the filing deadlines go into the phone's own calendar instead. A calendar entry survives hibernation and even survives the app being deleted. Three dates can be added: the filing deadline, the day the ten-year window resets, and the day the child turns 19 and the allowance changes. That last one is years away, and nobody remembers it unaided. The entries can also be copied out as a summary for the filing form, and the filing steps are written up inside the app.
Nothing leaves the phone. No bank link, no tax-office link, no account.
Who this is for
- Parents in Korea putting money or shares into a child's account who are not sure when to file
- Families where both sets of grandparents also give, and nobody knows the running total
- Anyone saving a child's New Year money into an investment account in the child's name
- Parents planning a second gift in ten years' time who want the date pinned down now
- Anyone unsure whether a gift from years ago still counts against the limit
Download (Google Play, free): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.thefacegood.childgift
※ Treat every figure the app produces as a reference estimate rather than tax advice; the app is a private project with no link to the National Tax Service. Valuing real estate or unlisted shares, gifts that carry a debt, and start-up relief schemes fall outside what it handles, so have a tax professional check the return you actually file. The app is free with a banner ad and one full-screen ad at start or when saving a gift.
If a calculation looks wrong or a rule changes, leave a review and I will update it quickly. I have watched another gift tax app drift to two stars by leaving an old rate in place for too long, and I intend not to repeat that.
Comments
Post a Comment