Korean Regional Resource Facility Tax (Fire Service) Calculator

This calculator works out the fire-service portion of the regional resource facility tax, the item that appears on your annual property tax bill alongside property tax itself. Enter the building's tax base and choose whether it is an ordinary building, a fire-risk building such as a petrol station or theatre, or a large fire-risk building such as a department store or hotel, and it shows the base amount from the standard rate table, the amount after the fire-risk multiplier, and the final amount after any adjustment the local government has made by ordinance.

If you have run a property tax calculator and the bill still comes out higher, this tax is a large part of the reason. The bill carries not only property tax but also local education tax, the urban-area property tax and the regional resource facility tax. The latter is an earmarked tax raised for local resources and facilities such as the fire service, and the fire-service portion is the part charged on buildings and ships.

Building owners who receive their property tax bills in July and September and want to understand each line. For an apartment owner the amount is small, but for a commercial building, factory or hotel with a large tax base, or any building classed as fire-risk, it becomes noticeable, so it is worth estimating before the bill arrives.

Buyers weighing the cost of holding a building use it too. Two buildings at the same price can differ sharply: a fire-risk use doubles this tax and a large fire-risk use triples it, so it is worth checking before purchase. Since each local government can raise or lower the rate by ordinance, the calculator also shows how much the same building would cost in different areas.

The basis is 지방세법 제146조제3항. 제1호 sets a standard rate table with six bands of tax base for buildings and ships. The rates are expressed in the statute as fractions of ten thousand, and the structure is progressive: the rate on the excess rises with each band. A tax base up to ₩6,000,000 is taxed at 0.04%, and each higher band adds the cumulative amount up to the previous band plus a percentage of the excess. The top band, above ₩64,000,000, is ₩49,100 plus 0.12% of the excess. The tax base is the same officially assessed value used for property tax, and for the building portion of a house the property tax fair-market-value ratio is applied.

The second step is the fire-risk multiplier. Under 제2호 and 제2호의2, a building with a high fire risk pays 200% of the amount computed under 제1호, and a large fire-risk building pays 300%. Petrol stations, theatres and buildings of four to ten storeys are examples of the first; department stores, large supermarkets, hotels and buildings of eleven storeys or more are examples of the second. The third step is the local adjustment. Under 제146조제5항 a local government may raise or lower the standard rate by up to 50% by ordinance, and the calculator applies the percentage you enter within that range to reach the final amount.

Take an ordinary building with a tax base of ₩100,000,000. The cumulative amount up to ₩64,000,000 is ₩49,100, and 0.12% of the ₩36,000,000 excess is ₩43,200, giving ₩92,300. With no local adjustment that is the final figure, well under 0.1% of the tax base. The building portion of a single apartment usually has a smaller base than this, which is why the line on the bill is only a few tens of thousands of won. At a tax base of ₩20,000,000 the amount is ₩5,900 for the lower bands plus 0.06% of the ₩7,000,000 excess, ₩10,100.

If the same ₩100,000,000 building is a petrol station or theatre, it is a fire-risk building and the tax becomes 200% of ₩92,300, or ₩184,600; if it is a department store or hotel, 300%, or ₩276,900. An ordinary building in an area whose ordinance raises the rate by 50% pays ₩92,300 times 1.5, or ₩138,450. For the same building value, the use and the location can move the figure by a factor of three.

The most common one is computing only the property tax itself and concluding the bill is wrong. The bill also carries local education tax, urban-area property tax and this tax, so compare line by line. The second is including the land value in the tax base. The fire-service portion is charged on buildings and ships, not land, and for a house only the building portion counts.

The third is overlooking the fire-risk classification. A building of four storeys or more may not be "ordinary", and a change of use changes the class. If the multiplier on your bill does not make sense, check the use and storey count on the building register. The fourth is applying figures from another area. Because of local ordinances, the same building can be taxed differently in different districts. Finally, foreign owners sometimes fall into arrears simply because the bill never reaches them. This tax is charged on the property and its ownership regardless of nationality, so an owner without a Korean address is wise to appoint a tax agent.