[Opinion] Split of Reception Fee

The “night reception” culture of Korea is made up of mixed alcoholic drinks and “hostesses’ sexual reception” (the game of persuading prostitutes to have sex) which crosses the level of a million won as the high price of one night of drinking is widely known overseas. Several years ago, an e-mail from a Korean employee of a U.S. based investing company which had overtaken the Hanmi Bank was reported in an economic newspaper published overseas, humiliated the country. “I received perks such as golf, dinner, and drinks from the executives of several banks. The bedroom of my house, which has a great view of Han River, is the place where I make love with the young girls.” Feminist organizations have brought forward the problems of treatment in the “room salon” (a unique style bar where male guests invite hostesses with some money to drink liquor together), and demanded it to be excluded from the official expenses of the company.

It has been added up that the reception fees of the company, which are spent in the room salons, has increased from 35 billion won in 2000 to 95 billion won in the last year, showing a 165 percent rise. As of 2003, one-third of the entire reception fees paid out by companies was spent on luxurious merry-making place. The National Tax Service has corrected the reception fee related provisions so that the identity of the guest has to be recorded on the backside of receipt or the credit card bill, in order to get the recognition of NTS for reception fees which exceeds 500,000 won. The reception, which surpasses the 500,000 won level, is mainly carried out at a room salon or a golf range. In particular, there are no customers who want to put down their name on the receipt of room salon where sexual treatments frequently occurs. The “Identity Clarification System of Reception” will exert the beneficial influences on the reception culture, such as promoting the sound and clear culture of treatment, but it will also give rise to side effects. In business, the reception expenditures is an essential cost for the commercial pursuits. There are some opinions that the uniformed application of limits on the reception expenditures, which does not classify the type of reception, is a mistake of NTS. As the deeply rooted reception culture is still the same, every possible illegal method to avoid the newly revised ordinance is dancing boisterously. In the room salon street of Gangnam, one of the popular pleasure jaunts in Seoul, the neighboring bars are consulting with each other to divide the receipt to several 490,000-won worth of fragments to avoid the surveillance of NTS. It can also instigate the double entry system in the account books.

“Frankly speaking, the welfare expenses for the employees are included in the reception fee,” remarked a chairman of a certain conglomerate, adding, “There are so many people who feel the mood of deprivation, as the system has suddenly changed.” Sometimes the alteration of the society replaces the system, and some other times, the system and the policy is changed in advance to induce the transformation of the society. No matter as to whether the latter or former has priority, it is certain that the sexual and alcoholic entertainment grounded on the company’s expenses will no longer exist. Even the reception fee should be divided to spend frugally.

Editorialist Hwang Ho-tack hthwang@donga.com