<p>Well, you pay taxes on earned income, yes.</p>
<p>But many students who work part-time earn so little that they pay next-to-nothing in federal and state income taxes, because the first several thousand dollars that you earn are exempt from taxation. </p>
<p>When you’re paid, your employer will deduct tax payments from your wages and pay them to the appropriate government bodies. This process is called withholding. There will normally be federal income tax, state income tax, Social Security tax and Medicare tax. You can’t really do anything about the Social Security tax or the Medicare tax, but you can do something about the income taxes. When you file tax returns the following year, if you have paid (through employer withholding) more income tax than you actually owe, the government (federal, state or both) will refund the excess tax that you have paid. Or, if you are quite sure that you will end up with little or no tax liability at the end of the year (that is, that the amount you will owe for federal or state income tax is little or nothing), then you can have your employer adjust your withholding accordingly, and the income taxes won’t be over-withheld from your paychecks in the first place.</p>
<p>But you’ll still have Social Security and Medicare taxes withheld, and you won’t get them back.</p>