[helene_t]

kenberg, on Feb 18 2009, 03:10 AM, said:

It has been my experience that whatever they come up with in tax gimmicks, there is always some reason why it doesn't apply to me.

I second that. I lived the first 41 years of my life in countries with mortgage interest deduction, and always rented. Then I moved to a country without interest deduction, and bought an apartment, lol.

[PassedOut]

I see that Recovery.gov is up today, but lacks detail so far. Should be a good resource in the months ahead.

[barmar]

kenrexford, on Feb 17 2009, 12:30 PM, said:

That's about stupid. We are going to actually require people to fill out their tax return with a whole bunch of new stuff so that a person making $189K gets $10 back from the government?

Most people in that income range probably use tax prep software or a professional tax preparer. One more, simple worksheet is not going to be any problem.

The primary beneficiaries of this credit are low-income workers. The full $800 benefit kicks in at about $13K. To families in the $13-50K income range, this is a week to a month of extra wages, which is nothing to sneeze at.

Are you just complaining about the phase-out, rather than an abrupt cut-off? I think this is done to avoid employers gaming the system. With a cut-off, companies will forego a raise that puts employees over the limit, so that they can get more from the government. Or worse, they might even drop salaries; e.g. someone everyone earning between $150,000 and $150,800 would have their salaries dropped to $150,000, but they would all end up making $150,800 with the fed making up the difference.