Chapter 15: Chapter 15

Other team members offered a cup to Hyunwooo with congratulatory words.

Though Hyunwoo was a heavy drinker, he didn’t like alcohol that much. He drank a lot when the circumstances forced him to do so, but he usually avoided drinking occasions and drank as little as possible. At the same time, he tried not to offend the other party’s feelings. Also, the secret of it was sort of an overaction on his part, namely pretending to be overly drunk though he wasn’t.

“Hey, Hyunwoo, you’re still sober. Let me give you a drink.”

“Thank you,” Hyunwoo said, holding out his cup.

“Just hold it. Don’t tremble!”

“Did I? Ooops, as I’m drunk, I can’t control my hand.”

“Why are you saying that when your face is pretty much sober?”

“Well, however, much I get drink, it doesn’t show up on my face. That’s why I usually drink more than I can. Even now, I’ve reached more than my limit.”

“Really? Okay, this is the last cup then.”

“Thank you, sir.”

In order to get the drinking meeting done quickly, the best policy is to have the boss go back home. Though it isn’t supposed to be too noticeable, the thing is to have him get drunk nicely by refilling his cup repeatedly at an appropriate time.

“Manager, can I refill your cup once more?”

“Let’s finish it here for today. Don’t we have to go to another drinking place? We all should go together, okay?”

The second place was a karaoke room. It was the place Yonggu could show off his talent as much as he could.

As soon as he got into the karaoke room, he proved why he was called the genius of dining occasions. He presided over the singing after a great introduction. He livened up the atmosphere by singing the tunes of traditional Korean pop songs, showing his buttock slightly when his mood was at the highest, moving around the team members with skinship.

At that moment, some of the team members were carried away with joy, screaming. Everyone stood up and did the funky chicken.

Even though Yonggu sang only one song, the atmosphere at the karaoke room was already really lively up. Even Hyunwoo was stunned at Yonggu’s extraordinary talent show.

As time went by, Yonggu livened up the atmosphere further and further.

At times, he evoked their laughter by tying his hair with a necktie, rolling up his trouser sleeves up to his knees, and putting onto his eyebrow bottle caps instead of glasses. He also imitated playing the guitar by unbuckling his belt, and he did a comical dance with a fire extinguisher over his shoulder.

To Hyunwoo’s eyes, however, Yonggu’s talent was no more than amateurish. If he had his own way, he could knock him down a peg anytime.

Of course, Hyunwoo resisted doing so. If he had done so, Yonggu would try to do his best to beat him, which might lead to a battle between the junior and superior of the same company, something dangerous for Hyunwoo. Even though Hyunwoo could win, it was actually a losing game. There are many opportunities for it in the days ahead. When the right time comes along, Hyunwoo could show what the real talent show at the dining-together place is. Until then, it would be wise for him to be content with playing second fiddle to Yonggu.

When Yonggu rolled up his left trouser cuffs, Hyunwoo acted as his partner, rolling up his right trouser cuffs. When Yonggu unbuckled his belt, Hyunwoo made a gesture by pretending to play the guitar with his teeth. Both of them hit it off together well.

The following afternoon.

“Manager, let me go out to visit the customs office.”

“Do you want to learn the customs clearance-related work? Okay, go ahead.”

Hyunwoo got out of the office for his first working trip since he got hired.

It was very stuffy outside because it was summer, but Hyunwoo just felt refreshed.

As soon as Hyunwoo entered the customs office, an office clerk gladly greeted him.

However, he avoided Hyunwoo’s questions about his work. Though he didn’t say it explicitly, he sort of wanted Hyunwoo to leave because he was very busy.

Hyunwoo couldn’t just leave the place, of course.

He placed his ace for this very meeting, saying, “In fact, I’m afraid I have to cut down the fee for the customs broker a bit. The company’s financial situation is too bad.”

Then, the middle-aged man sitting in the back looked at Hyunwoo and stood up quickly to deal with Hyunwoo instead of the office clerk.

“Well, I’m actually giving you a great discount even now. How can I give you more of a discount than now? I get just 50,000 won as the fee of an import declaration paper and 30,000 won for the export paper. After I pay the salary of my employees here, I don’t get a single cent.”

Checking his name card, Hyunwoo found that he was the office manager.

Obviously, the office manager was making a fuss about trifles. He said he was actually going to ask for the fee to increase more because it was difficult to compile import declaration papers for Aurum since its import items were too complicated.

“Well, we don’t want to raise the issue with the fee as a rule, but our company’s situation is too bad financially. Can you cut down the fee for several months? When our financial situation gets better, we’ll raise the fee again,” Hyunwoo said.

“Hummm.. How much can you save by cutting down the fee?”

“That’s why we’re trying to cut down the fee. Management even recommends us to file an import declaration paper directly instead of getting the customs broker’s help.”

“Just go ahead if you can. It’s not as easy as you think. You might lose 3 million won by mistake when you want to save just 300,000 won per month for the customs brokerage fee.”

“As you know, we’ve never made an error before, right?”

“That’s because we’ve processed everything accurately. Can you figure out how to calculate the accurate tax fee? Can you deal with it if your company runs into any trouble with the customs office?”

The office manager frightened him in one way or another.

Hyunwoo could make nothing of it, but he jotted down on his notebook what the office manager said, for he felt that the office manager’s talking points were the most common mistakes anyway.

“As a matter of fact, I want to avoid handling the task of direct customs clearance processing. I don’t make more money just because I cut down on the commission fee. I need some reasons why you can’t give a bigger discount to report to my boss.”

“There are many reasons, of course.”

He then explained to Hyunwoo about the danger of import and export declaration papers.

After listening to him, Hyunwoo opened his mouth and said,

“I thought import and export declaration was simple, but it is much more complicated than I thought.”

“What I told you so far is only the tip of the iceberg. When you import machine parts, you have to check out whether they’re qualified for an exemption or reduced fee…”

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Every time the office manager talked, Hyunwoo’s notebook got filled with customs-related words.

“Anyway, I can’t give you a bigger discount right now. We have to make a living out of this, too. Instead, we won’t ask for an increase in the fee.”

“Huhhhhh… got it. I think I’ve sorted out things in some way. Let me report to my manager.”

Hyunwoo got out of the office, but he didn’t return to Aurum.

In order to catch a tiger, one should go into the tiger’s cave.

Hyunwoo headed directly to the customs office in the city of Ansan.

Hope I can get something to learn here.

When he entered the customs office, he was surprised to find the employees there were like policemen in uniform, unlike the typical government employee at the dong office (lowest administrative office) or tax office.

However, their impression was favorable.

When Hyunwoo entered, a young female employee greeted him with a cheerful smile.

“How can I help you?”

When he looked at the nameplate on her desk, it read ‘Min Yuri, public grievances officer.’

“My name is Jang Hyunwoo, and I’m with the purchasing section of Aurum. I just stopped by to say hello because I’ve been newly assigned to customs clearance work. I’ve got something to ask.”

Hyunwoo offered her the soft drink he had prepared for this occasion.

“Oh, you don’t have to buy drinks. Next time, just come without anything like this.”

He sat face to face with her.

Explaining to her the difficult situation of his company, he asked her how to handle customs clearance without going through the customs broker.

Her tone was negative as she said, “Well, it’s easy to compile a declaration paper. Even a high school student could do so with only one hour’s training, but the thing is how accurately he could do it. The import is directly linked to taxes, so if you make a mistake, you’ll incur an enormous tax.”

In fact, the tax Lee Yuri mentioned was enormous. It was sometimes 50 million won and sometimes 100 million won. Also, the dual penalty clause, when breached, was supposed to penalize both the company and its president.

“If you are confident that you won’t make this kind of mistake, you can go ahead. Otherwise, give it to a professional.”

In other words, she recommended him to make use of the customs broker. However, he couldn’t give up like that. When he had to give up, he needed to show to his coworkers that he had done his best.

“What should I study to master this?”

Yurin wrote down some study terms such as customs law, import…notification, export..notification, taxable amount…

Hyunwoo felt dizzy because even the core topics he wrote down were as many as five.

He stood up, holding his notebook.

Lee saw him off with a cheerful smile and said, “Please call me anytime when you have any questions.”

“Thanks.”

He got out of the customs office when an young employee next to Lee said to him, “Wait a minute! You said you’re an Aurum employee, right?”

Hyunwoo turned back and checked his nameplate. It read ‘Kwak Junho, tax refund officer.”

“Yes, you’re right.”

Kwak asked him suddenly, “Why didn’t you claim the tax refund?”

Hyunwoo’s eyes opened wide.

“Tax refund?”

“Your company exported 4 million dollars last year, but the company didn’t ask for a tax refund so far. The previous year you exported half a million dollars…”

Kwak was talking to Hyunwoo while looking at his computer monitor. Then he paused, nodding his head.

“Ah, your company don’t have a long exports history. Is it correct your company started exporting last year?”

That was true. Since it developed the export market in Japan two years ago, its export volume was increasing exponentially. Though it exported only half a million dollars for 20 items two years ago, its exports increased to 4 million dollars for 70 items, and this year alone the exports amounted to 3 million dollars for 40 items already, with six more months to go.

Like Kwak said, Aurum’s history was short, though its export volume was large.

Hyunwoo nodded his head and said, “You’re right.”

“Oh, you didn’t know about the customs tax refund. Just apply for it and claim the money.”

Hyunwoo approached Kwak with a tense look and asked him cautiously,

“How much is the refund?”

“Combining the refunds for last year and the previous year…”

Kwak tapped his calculator, looking at the monitor, and said casually,

“It’s about 20 million won.”

Hyunwoo’s jaws dropped at that.

“20 million won!”

That wasn’t the end of the story.

“If your exports are steady like this, you can claim about 10 million won as the refund every year, so take good care of it.”

“10 million won every year?”