Poll: What Would You Do with a Federal Tax Rebate Check?
Wednesday January 23, 2008
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Both the President and the US Congress are mulling over ideas to stimulate the struggling US economy. One proposal is issuing federal tax rebate checks. Different versions of the idea are being considered, with any tax rebate checks expected to be in the $500 - $800 range for individuals and $1,000 - $1,600 range for those who are married and file returns jointly. There is a wide range of opinions over whether unexpected taxpayer windfalls in the form of federal tax rebate checks would help the economy at all. Over the past few years, the economy has enjoyed riding on the back of consumer spending to keep it afloat. Those who believe that federal tax rebate checks would stimulate the economy hope this will be the case. Take the Poll - How Would You Spend a Federal Tax Rebate Check So the question I pose to you is, "Just how will you spend your federal tax rebate check if the emergency legislation is approved?" The hope is that the initiative will pass soon so US taxpayers will have the cash in hand by this summer. Many consumers are finding themselves strapped for cash, and fears of an impending recession in the US (if you are in the camp that believes we're not yet in one) has opponents saying that we wouldn't spend enough of our federal tax rebate checks to make much of a difference, as there is too much fear and too much pain in the economy right now over the housing crunch and energy prices. Take the poll now and weigh in on the subject. You can select as many answers you like. |
Comments
Randy,
It looks like the tentative deal now is providing rebates of only $300 per taxpayer or up to $1200 per household with caps at $75,000 per individual and $150,000 per household.
In my case, my wife and I would get $600. I’m not sure that’s a significant enough amount to do much of anything with. It probably means a lot more to folks who are near or below the poverty line.
In our case, the money will likely just go into our savings account or be applied to our higher than past winter utility bills including gasoline.
John
I am going to donate mine to the
Democratic Party to help get rid of
the biggest thief and the most worthless
useless scum-bag anus orifice that ever
sat in the oval office.Oh yeah, I almost forgot, the biggest liar also.
John - the numbers so far are only tentative as the whole thing has to get to Congress and get approved. The proposal so far doesn’t eliminate the rebate entirely when income threshholds are met - it just starts to decline. Here’s some text from an AP story that might make the amounts proposed a bit clearer:
“Under the agreement announced by the White House, Boehner and Pelosi, individual taxpayers would get up to $600 in rebates, working couples $1,200 and those with children an additional $300 per child. In a key concession to Democrats, 35 million families who make at least $3,000 but don’t pay taxes would get $300 rebates.
The rebates would phase out gradually for individuals whose adjusted gross income exceeds $75,000 and for couples with incomes above $150,000. Contributions to IRA and 401(k) retirement accounts and health savings accounts would not count toward the income limit.”
Steve - while I respect your right to an opinion, you came very close to having your comment deleted - not that I disagree with you necessarily, just that it came close to not being “family-friendly text”. I can’t edit comments, I only have the ability to accept or reject them in their entirety.
At any rate, I’m sure the topic will be very controversial and I’m glad that at least it’s getting some of you to voice your opinion.
Randy D.
Randy, Sorry! I was was really trying
to be as “nice” as I could.
I’m just glad someone else remembers Scrooge McDuck.
Might want to wait until the beltway politicians send it out. I agree with Steve 100%..
$800???? please…. what the @!# can ya do with that. maybe $5000 would be more in line in order to actualy buy something worthwhile. When you consider the billions, with a B, that are being pissed away on the so called war effort, $5000 each does not seem out of line. Gimme Gimme Gimme
I checked invest as it is closest to our use. Actually we will probably use some for estimated taxes,
With zero debt for decades we still save out of our pensions. It is called living within our means. One reason is that we pay the greedy “credit” card companies only the cost of what we purchase each month. No interest, fees, or other nicks to our money. And we save stamps by using direct transfer. Added advantage is that we have confirmation that the money arrives to the card company.
duke
As if NO money was ever screwed away before the war effort. Oh no, never! We don’t have a back and forth between parties with any sort of proof that either likes to frittle away OPM like toilet paper. Neither party is capable of fixing this country. This tax credit is just a drop in the bucket, but I will take it. Before Billary starts taking more of my income, strangling our education and health $$, and making it even harder to survive with a special needs child than it already is!
The money would best be spent going towards/into social programs where people who need the help and money would get it and spend it quickly. Food, clothing, heating..etc.
Since our bills are paid off (we pay our credit cards off each month), we are going to Disney. We were already leaning toward doing that (we have three kids 15, 11, and
, but the tax rebate kind of helped us make the final decision and to stay a couple of days longer than we would have.
Oh– And I am glad someone remembers Scrooge McDuck too!
I wonder why Unca Scrooge has gone into hiding?
I am just coming off unemployment and still haven’t found a job. I would definately appreciate ANYTHING I get to pay bills.
How about the truly hurting people at the lowest socioeconomic scale who are retirees on Soc. Sec. and the disabled. Perhaps not affluent seniors who don’t need some extra help.
Oh yeah, those people are not taxpayers and shouldn’t count.
Is this the same “rebate” as in 2001 that if you didn’t claim the amount as untaxed income on your Federal tax returns, you got a letter from the IRS asking for about 1/3 of it back? In the interest of truth-in-lending, I hope the “rebate” check comes with a disclosure statement indicating the net amount you will receive.
I think the refund is good.But what about all the people who are on SOCIAL SECURITY,they too should get help,also.They don’t get any help,and they sure got the greedy hands in our money.And they give away billons,and the people in the USA only get a small amont of money.Makes you wonder.
Saving mine to pay the extra taxes if the Democrats get in. Doesn’t Uncle Sucker realize most people will just run to COMMUNIST CHINA MART, ‘er I mean Wal-Mart, and send it over to Communist China?? How will that help the U.S. economy????
Since I’ve worked hard enough to earn more than $75,000 and am single, in addition to paying the most taxes in the country, I’m among the class that is ineligible for the rebate. I think that this whole idea sucks, but then again, this is what the Pimp Bush did shortly after being elected in 2000 (if you recall, everyone got rebate checks back then)…too bad our economy is in such a shambles that the money that is going to the people who actually need it won’t get anything else besides this. I actually feel sorry for folks who think this is a windfall; your kids are the ones who are going to pay the Chinese interest for this “rebate”.
Have to keep warm Oil 315.00 for 100 gallons . which only last 3 weeks??
Hear hear, Rebecca…bashing Bush is pointless…Dems won’t save us from govt. overspending, that’s like expecting alcoholics not to spend money at the bar. BOTH parties need to control themselves. And no matter what the rebate ends up being, it’s a good thing. ANY time the govt. gives OUR money that WE earned back to US so that WE can spend it as WE see fit rather than taking it away and spending it as THEY see fit is a move in the right direction.
What what I do with the measly $500 the govt might send me? Um, lessee — how far would $500 go? Yep, one tuneup. Start a business???? Who thought that up?
You know, as much as I could use the money (as a crippled single mom and student), I really do think we ought to get crazy and work on NATIONAL DEBT.
Or, you know, just put another straw on the back of the camel named “The Existence of the US.” Either way.
All in All it’s a bandaid approach to the inevitable crash that will soon come in the form of America living beyond it’s means. Like many say, who’s really benefiting? If people don’t use the rebates to pay bills and use it for necessary bill paying then they will buy products made directly from China.
With inflation hitting from all sides, the average American is losing ground with stagnant wages and are being forced to buy cheap Chinese products. This is America, why can’t we produce and manufacture our own products, put people back to work and work to compete against cheaply made products from China. Put an import tax on goods from China and bring back middle class manufacturing. Only Americans can unite and save this country and buy American. Even Walmart sold out to China, several years ago they prided themselves selling products made only in America.
America, land of the free and producers of 7 years of mismanagement, greed and selling out the American dream.
i will send MY money since is is just that MINE a “rebate” on the future return of my tax dollars from my 08 taxes. ther is no free lunch if “these worthless useless scum-bag anus orifices” as the above comentor IN CONGRESS would try to do someting useful other than being obstructionist we would be in a better position today as they have done nothing nada squat! LESS TAX MORE GROWTH ! FACT !
Nope.. I’m a senior citizen and earned $241 last year so I get no breaks here, as usual. I might have spent it on the Rx I need, for it is now priced at more than half of my monthly food budget. No surprise. I worked and paid taxes for over 55 years but that doesn’t count. If I had one of these rebates, you could be sure I’d buy American! What a concept!
I think that converting it in to coin and swimming in it is the best idea as $600 dollars is not going to do much. My total utility bills will use it all up. Another band aid from congress for a gushing artery.
Does anyone else seem to be annoyed that this new tax refund will be given to people who don’t even pay taxes!!! Maybe I am scrooge but come on!
I’m using my $600 to invest in Chinese stocks and Korean stocks. This payout will only increase our massive trade deficit to Asia and the Middle East, so why not invest this rebate where the money is going to flow anyway?
This refund is a scam. Where is the money that we don’t have for this going to come from? It won’t come from the military contractors. It won’t come from the oil companies. It will come from education, health care, programs for children. We are borrowing money from China and the Arab block as if it was going out of style … and future generations - OUR KIDS, OUR GRANDKIDS - will pay the price. Remember the third world countries that have been forced to adopt bad policies by the World Bank, because they owed the World Bank money? The United States will be in that position. China and Saudi Arabia will be dictating our fiscal policies.
When you have a president that has acted like an imbecile before, why believe anything he says?
Even tho I’m receiving SS and a small retirement check. I’m still raising a Cebral Palzy grandchild. You get paid one day and broke the next. I pay taxes, Lights, have to eat and gas takes a big bite. I will probably give to my working poor grandchilden, they need a big check so they can catch completely up. I can only pray the government gets smart some day and learns to take care of our own. Rent has become like making payments on a house. I’m looking for a change come 2008 elections.
Thank you Bev and Randy. I read everyone’s comments and I like where Bev BEGAN her statement. What your average American does not understand, is that to get a rebate, the money has to come from SOME OTHER PROGRAM. SO which one? I ask this to any intelligent reader whom is commenting like a intelligent reader may; and not some ignorant narrow-minded reader with some statement to blame one party or another. The last tax rebate we got I did not get what I thought I’d get due to my ex claiming taxes incorrectly and getting away with it. Because this wonderful government does not know what the left or the right hand is doing. My fault for not being informed. So the media will take this rebate and make a big thing about it like it is really helping us. When in fact it is only putting hot sand on an open wound. I will (that is if I get a rebate) invest it. The congress, if they read and listen to the American people and not the media’s misconstrued conception of what people think, have a difficult mission if they truly are there to help their constituents. They have to please everyone. And that is complicated in America these days. And the world only see’s what they want to observe. Read and stay informed and always investigate before speaking.
Sorry, but there was no line in the poll for “not getting one.”
While the government is more than happy to take our money (my tax bracket and up pays 87% of all federal income taxes - IRS data), it seems when it’s time to return money to the taxpayers that we don’t deserve any.
Now my brother, who pays hardly any fed taxes, he gets a big “rebate.”
Redistribution of wealth. Our socialist government at work!
I’ll do what I did with the last refund–use it for my “Bush Boomerang”–send it to various environmental organizations that are fighting the Big Money interests attempts to wreck the earth–from Rain Forest to North Pole.
June
In the polls on the news both here in Texas and In Seattle Area ,where my daugther lives, almost everyone is either saving or investing the “rebate”.
I do not think that a new government is going to change a thing. So I guess all we can do is hope for the best and hope that the PANIC of the rest of the world calms down.
Be careful how you answer. It’s still up for a vote and if they get the notion we aren’t going to use the money in a way that WILL help the economy (whatever that is) it may be an incentive to vote it down. As for me..my property taxes are close to costing me my home. That’s where I’d use the money, if we even get it. And that still wouldn’t pay even one bi-annual tax bill.
i’ll use the $ to fill up my gas tank
Stimulus huh? It’s a band-aid on a belly wound. Let’s see, we go to the big box place and spend it on Chinese made stuff?
Maybe the reality voiced by more than one here is keep the family buggy running with repairs and gas or pay bills. As for me, I’m going to send it back with instructions to apply it on the deficit.
Since our monthly food and gasoline budget is $650 it may be good for 1 month. It’s pathetic PR, people will snatch it but those with sense will see it for what its is. Stop spending on this war that’s making defense contractors and oil corporations rich and pay off our national debt. We’re the largest debtor nation, Japan, China, Germany and stable Middle East countries the largest creditors. So we owe them and buy most of our goods from them. Gr8.
I will use this worthless money, paid in worthless US dollar currency, to buy whatever I can in terms of protest material and stand on street corners calling for the arrest and imprisonment of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney on charges of international war crimes and lying to the American public and Congress. I will also donate to worthy humanitarian causes that look after the poorest of poor around the world, b/c Dick and Georgie only seem to be concerned with elite, white men like Wall Street bankers, private defense contractors, oil companies and hedge fund managers.
Hmmmm. red paint, or blue paint?…..
Has this poll been released again this year?
I’m curious what 2009 results would be.
To M. Moore:
The poll was about the economic stimulus one-time rebate that was enacted last year. While there has been talk of additional similar stimuli for 2009, nothing has come down yet, so no, a poll hasn’t been created yet.
There is a poll in the forum, however at http://forums.about.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?msg=84&nav=messages&webtag=ab-homebusiness that was setup by a visitor.
Randy D.