필사 모드: Nine Korean Reads on Money for Engineers — After Removing Everything That Sells a Product, Only the Arithmetic Was Left
English- Why this particular topic resists searching
- How this list was assembled
- Half of your payslip is insurance, not tax
- Year-end settlement and stock options are questions of ordering
- Severance pay starts from one line: average wage
- The moment a developer becomes a business
- If you want to run the numbers yourself
- Limits of this list
A note on language. Every linked piece below is written in Korean. The descriptions here are mine, in English, but the destinations are Korean-language pages.
Why this particular topic resists searching
Developers do year-end tax settlements too. Some receive stock options, some get a severance calculation sheet on their way out, and some upload a side-project app and then freeze in front of the May income tax filing screen. Yet searching these topics returns oddly similar results: the refund amount up front, a promise that an app will do the math, and a signup button at the bottom.
The problem is not that those articles are wrong. Most of them are correct. The problem is that they do not explain why the calculation comes out that way. If you only take the number, you have to search again next year when one condition changes. Understand the structure once and you can recompute it yourself when conditions change. For engineers, the second approach is also the more familiar one.
How this list was assembled
This is an editorial pick by one person, not a ranking. I have no way to measure view counts or popularity, and I did not try. I filtered on three criteria.
First, I kept only writing that explains the calculation structure. Pieces that give you a conclusion only, or that use a projected refund as bait, were excluded.
Second, I excluded everything whose primary purpose is selling a financial product or service. This turned out to be the most commonly rejected category while gathering candidates: help-center documents from refund apps, content pages from banks and brokerages, and blogs selling courses. Some were factually accurate, but they compromise the reader's judgment, so they are out.
Third, I opened every link and checked it. Candidates that failed to load, demanded a login, redirected elsewhere, or whose actual content did not match what the search snippet implied were dropped.
Nine pieces survived. And to be honest about the result: six of the nine are official guidance pages from government institutions. I wanted more personal blogs, but writing that explains the calculation all the way through without selling anything turned out to be rarer than expected. I think that outcome says something real about the information environment around this topic, so rather than padding the list, I left it as it is.
Tax law and public systems change frequently. Always re-check against the latest official guidance (Korea's National Tax Service and equivalents).
Every link was opened and verified on 2026-08-12. Personal blog posts can disappear or change addresses.
Half of your payslip is insurance, not tax
The gap between your gross salary and what lands in your account is mostly insurance contributions, not income tax. These two pages show, with official formulas, how those contributions are built.
Premium calculation method (health insurance, long-term care insurance)
National Health Insurance Service (국민건강보험공단) — official guidance
A page laying out, with formulas and worked examples, the order in which health insurance and long-term care premiums are computed.
Read this if — you want to reconcile the deduction lines on your payslip yourself, at least once.
This page pins down the point people most often get wrong about long-term care premiums. The long-term care premium is not your salary times a rate; it is your already-computed health insurance premium times a rate. If you miss that the calculation nests one level deep, your numbers will never match the payslip. Regional subscriber calculation is covered on the same page, so you can also see why premiums jump so sharply after you leave a salaried job. If you are considering going freelance, this section is worth reading in advance.
Pension contributions
National Pension Service (국민연금공단) — official guidance
Explains that pension contributions are standard monthly income multiplied by a contribution rate, and that the standard monthly income has both a ceiling and a floor.
Read this if — your salary went up but your pension deduction did not, and you wondered why.
Knowing that a ceiling exists changes how you convert a negotiated salary into take-home pay. Once standard monthly income passes the ceiling, contributions stop rising, so in higher salary bands a larger share of any raise reaches your account. The page also documents the schedule by which the contribution rate is being adjusted in stages, which is useful when comparing several years side by side. That it carries no advertising is a rare virtue in this subject area.
Year-end settlement and stock options are questions of ordering
Year-end tax settlement is hard not because there are many line items but because the order in which they apply is invisible. The tax service guidance breaks that order into discrete steps.
Employment income — how year-end settlement tax is calculated
National Tax Service (국세청) — official guidance
A page enumerating, step by step, the path from gross salary to final assessed tax.
Read this if — you want to understand once and for all why income deductions and tax credits have different effects.
The value here is not the list of line items but the sequence of the steps. An income deduction reduces the amount before the rate is applied; a tax credit reduces the tax after the rate has been applied. Picture that ordering once and it explains itself why income deductions favor higher earners while tax credits are worth the same regardless of income. Limits and rates change every year, but this skeleton rarely does, so one careful read lasts a long time. Always confirm current caps for individual deduction items against that year's guidance.
Employment income — stock option exercise gains at venture companies
National Tax Service (국세청) — official guidance
Sets out the tax-exempt limits and the available taxation elections that apply to stock option exercise gains at qualifying venture companies.
Read this if — you hold startup stock options and have started thinking about when to exercise.
What shocks people most about stock options is owing tax without having sold a single share. The gap between market value at exercise and the strike price is itself income, and this page explains how that gap is classified and what elections exist, along with their conditions. Simply knowing that mechanisms such as installment payment or a choice of taxation treatment exist can change an exercise plan. That said, the requirements are intricate and amended often, so use this as a starting point for knowing what to ask, and make the actual decision with a tax professional.
Severance pay starts from one line: average wage
The severance formula is short. But what goes into the average wage inside it changes the result substantially. Read these three together and you have the statute, the ministry's interpretation, and a worker-side checklist in one pass.
Payment of severance pay
Easy-to-Find Practical Law (찾기쉬운 생활법령정보) — Ministry of Government Legislation
The severance formula and the payment deadline, presented with their statutory basis.
Read this if — you are leaving a job and want to verify the calculation sheet the company handed you.
Because the Ministry of Government Legislation runs the site, the underlying provisions are attached. Beyond the formula, it covers rules excluding certain periods from the average wage calculation, which matters a great deal if parental leave or sick leave falls inside your final three months. The page also confirms that a statutory payment deadline exists, so you know what to cite if payment is delayed. The prose is dry, which is exactly what makes it good for verification.
Severance pay and the average wage formula
Ministry of Employment and Labor (고용노동부) — frequently asked questions
A short Q&A giving the calculation formula, including how average wage relates to ordinary wage.
Read this if — you only want the formula, precisely stated.
If the statutory commentary above feels long, this Q&A is the shortcut. The key point is the rule that if the average-wage result falls below ordinary wage, ordinary wage is used instead. Without knowing that safeguard, someone who leaves in a month with no bonuses or allowances simply absorbs the loss. It is short enough to hold beside a calculation sheet for line-by-line comparison. Coming directly from the responsible ministry, it also works as a citation.
Check whether your company calculates severance by the book
Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (민주노총) — Rights Handbook
Severance eligibility and calculation, rewritten so workers can check it themselves.
Read this if — statutory language does not land for you and you would rather see examples.
It covers the same ground with a different orientation. Where the statutory commentary explains the system, this piece walks through what you should verify, in order. It addresses the points where disputes actually arise, such as how continuous service is counted and which employment forms are covered, with examples. It comes from a labor union, so read it knowing it has a point of view, and cross-check the formula itself against the two official sources above.
The moment a developer becomes a business
Upload one app or take one contract and the tax structure changes. These two cover what shifts at that turning point.
Freelance developers: is registering as a business a good idea?
TAX WATCH — reporter Kang Ji-seon · 2024 · part of the tax-savings tips series
An interview-format article contrasting staying freelance with registering as a business.
Read this if — your contract or side income is growing and you are weighing a change of status.
The core of this article is not a verdict but what the decision criteria are. Freelancers can claim a narrow range of expenses; registered businesses can deduct properly documented spending but take on more filing obligations. It discusses roughly what income range makes that trade worthwhile, which makes it easy to substitute your own situation. An article using developers as the worked example is genuinely uncommon. Note that the bands and rates mentioned are as of publication and need re-checking against current rules.
Starting a mobile app or game business, part 2: business registration
Wing's Note (날개의 노트) — 날개 · 2019
A solo developer's step-by-step account of deciding on and completing business registration before putting apps and games on a store.
Read this if — you are preparing to ship a side project to a store and got stuck on the paperwork.
This is the only entry on the list written by a developer from personal experience. Where the institutional pages explain the system, this one shows what actually had to be decided, in order. It works through the points that stop everyone the first time: sole proprietorship versus corporation, how to classify your business type. It is a 2019 post, so screens, procedures, and threshold amounts may differ today. Read it for the order of reasoning and confirm the numbers and steps against current official guidance.
If you want to run the numbers yourself
This blog has related writing and calculators.
- Salary calculator — convert gross salary to take-home pay and watch the formulas above interlock.
- Loan calculator — vary the repayment structure and see how total interest responds.
- Compound interest calculator — see how period and rate of return change an outcome.
- Salary negotiation — once you understand the numbers, what you need next is the conversation.
These tools are for understanding structure and may differ from actual assessed amounts. They are not investment or tax advice.
Limits of this list
Worth restating: six of the nine entries are official institutional guidance. That does not mean good personal blog writing on this subject does not exist. It means writing that is unconnected to product sales and follows the calculation all the way through was hard to find in verifiable form. Rather than padding, I stopped at nine.
And once more, the sentence that matters most. Tax law and public systems change frequently. Always re-check against the latest official guidance (Korea's National Tax Service and equivalents). Nothing linked here is tax advice for your individual situation, and for large amounts or difficult judgments, please consult a tax professional.
현재 단락 (1/58)
**A note on language.** Every linked piece below is written in Korean. The descriptions here are min...