The joys and sorrows of government

No, this post has nothing to do with the Gomery inquiry, or on any potential guesstimates on the timing of our next election. It has to do with taxes. I love the government. A few weeks ago, a nice little bonus popped into my bank account out of the blue. I don't completely understand why the government chooses to pay me off under the title 'GST Rebate' or something like that....but I certainly am not complaining. Oh, did I mention I also dislike the government? See, I figured that with me going to school full-time last semester and not really earning much by way of income, I'd have a pretty nice looking rebate coming my way. Little did I understand the workings of part-time employment and a certain benefit called CPP. Here's my understanding of the issue. When one works part-time, the employer is not required to subtract any income tax from their pay. Okay, no problem there...except during tax time, the income tax subtracted from one's pay is what is returned to that same person during tax time. When one has no income tax removed from two part-time jobs, that same person should not expect to get a return from such non-existant funds. And here's the CPP deal. When a business is payed for services provided, CPP (or Canada Pension Plan) is not deducted from that business' payment. When that same business is actually just a person providing a service for another, that person does not pay the required CPP contributions. Hence, when it comes to tax time, and one has no income tax to claim and has not payed their CPP dues, that person should not expect to get a rebate from the government at tax time. In fact...that person can actually expect to PAY the government something along the lines of $239.39. That figure just popped into my head. haha. I used to love tax time. Poop.