I recieved a letter in the mail from the Child Tax Benefit people which I didn't fully understand, so I called them and asked about it. Turns out -they- didn't take into account Michael's income when calculating our payment, so long story short we 'owe' them roughly $900. I was pretty peeved actually, i'm usually pretty understanding when there's a mistake made, but not this time.
Of course they want their money back. Frankly I didn't -ask- for it so that's what makes me the most mad! So the man on the phone reassured me there is no interest collected, and that my now qualifying "$16 a month" will be applied against it, and if I were to recieve money at tax time it will be applied against it, etc etc. He just said that whenever I am to recieve money from CRA they will apply it against the $900 until it's paid back.
I don't really know what to think about everything, i'm just angry about it!
First of all that scares me cuz I am getting almost $60/month...so did they "forget" to calculate Tyler's income into that too? I will be pissed as I feel I complete paperwork to the best of my ability & if it's there screw up, I don't want to have to pay it back.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, I've had an issue like that before so I can totally sympathize. Tyler & I used to get GST cheques. But then, after deciding to live together, we (correctly & honestly) decided to file our taxes together. Turns out that decision screwed us over, as "together" we didn't qualify for GST cheques cuz our combined income was too high. So we both had to pay back the money we got that year. This angered me for several reasons. 1. If we were penalized for being honest, whereas many people are dishonest so continue getting the chques. 2. If we each qualified separately, we don't we qualify jointly? If we were merely roommates, we would still get the money. So a personal relationship deems us unworthy of the money?
As a passive aggressive stand against it, I refused to pay them back out of pocket. I made them wait & deduct it from future owings (i.e. tax returns). No way was I changing my quality of life to pay them back.
So yeah, that sucks!