April 29, 2008

• Cool News

  I just heard some cool news today. If you are waiting for your stimulus check….it may already be in your bank account.

  
  

  First federal rebate checks are delivered

  
  

  01:00 AM EDT on Tuesday, April 29, 2008

  
  

  Good news on the rebate front.

  If you arranged to have your
  federal rebate deposited directly into your bank or credit union
  account, there’s a chance it may already have arrived.

  The U.S.
  Treasury yesterday began distributing the first round of federal
  rebates. It’s the result of the new federal economic-stimulus law which
  is intended to help kick-start the nation’s slumping economy.

  The first batch of rebates wasn’t supposed to go out until Friday.

  But the Internal Revenue Service managed to process some of them earlier than planned.

  As a result, about 800,000 rebates were deposited directly into bank
  and credit union accounts yesterday, said IRS spokeswoman Peggy Riley

  The Treasury plans to directly deposit another 800,000 rebates today, 800,000 tomorrow and about 5 million on Friday, she said.

  So if you’re eligible for a rebate by direct deposit, you may wind up receiving it earlier than you figured.

  That should come as good news to consumers who are struggling with
  soaring food, energy and other costs –– and for those who are still
  paying their winter heating bills, said Mary F. Bernard, president of
  the Rhode Island Society of Certified Public Accountants.

  “The
  sooner you get it, the quicker you can start to invest it, pay off
  debts with it –– or, as the president hopes, spend it –– to put it back
  into the economy somehow,” said Bernard, who is also tax principal at
  Kahn Litwin Renza & Co., Ltd., a CPA firm in Providence.

  Edward M. Mazze, former dean of the University of Rhode Island’s
  College of Business Administration, said that the start of the rebate
  distribution “is going to help raise people’s confidence in the
  government’s ability to follow through on something that’s been
  promised, and also do something to stimulate the economy. While
  everybody’s talking, the government is actually doing something.”

  Mazze, who currently serves as distinguished university professor of
  business administration at URI, said, “Rhode Island is definitely in a
  recession,” and many other parts of the country are in the similar
  economic circumstances, with rising unemployment rates and a drop in
  confidence by business people and consumers.

  “People are really
  living so close to the edge now, [mainly] because of the rising price
  of gasoline. The [rebate] money is going to immediately help,” and will
  also spur economic activity –– no matter if people spend their rebate
  money, invest it or use it to pay bills, Mazze said.

  Keep in mind that the Treasury still plans to issue rebates by direct deposit first, paper checks later.

  So, as a general rule, if you filled out the “direct deposit” section
  of your federal income-tax return, you should receive your rebate by
  direct deposit, too –– and get it sooner than those who’ll receive
  rebate checks by mail.

  President Bush late last week announced that some rebates will be issued earlier than planned.

  The Treasury followed up with yesterday’s first round of directly deposited rebates, Riley said.

  “The simpler returns were processed through a more modernized computer
  system, so it speeded up the processing, and we were able to get the
  [rebates] out quicker,” Riley said yesterday.

  The IRS is still
  sticking with its originally published schedule for rebate
  distributions. The IRS also says that rebates will continue to be
  distributed based on the last two digits of your Social Security number.

  But the IRS now says, in effect, that the dates in that schedule are at
  the extreme end of the range. As a result, you could receive your
  rebate earlier.

  For example, the Treasury originally planned to
  start mailing rebate checks on May 16. So if the last two digits of
  your Social Security number are between 00 and 09, your rebate check
  wasn’t supposed to be in the mail before May 16.

  But the IRS now
  says that rebate checks for some of the people with those Social
  Security numbers will be mailed May 9, and that all of the checks for
  people with those Social Security numbers will be mailed by May 16.

  In general, rebates will range from $600 to $1,200 if you’re married
  and filing a joint return, or $300 to $600 if you used another “filing
  status” on your federal income-tax return (such as “single” or “head of
  household”).

  You may be eligible for an additional rebate amount
  of up to $300 for each child you have who was under 17 as of Dec. 31,
  2007.

  (The rebate schedule described above applies to people
  who filed their federal income-tax returns by April 15 and who are
  eligible for a rebate. If you’re eligible for a rebate but file or
  filed after April 15, you’ll receive your rebate later this year.)

  TODAY’S TIP: The IRS still plans to mail you an individualized notice
  which will let you know, based on your circumstances, how much you’ll
  receive and when you can expect to receive it.

  But because some
  rebates are being issued earlier than planned, some people will receive
  their rebates before they receive their notices, Riley said.

  Keep the notice in your tax files; you’ll need it early next year, when
  you complete your 2008 federal income-tax return, she said.

  To
  hear recorded messages about the federal rebate program and its rules,
  call the IRS’s rebate hotline toll-free at 1-866-234-2942. You can also
  find out more about the rebate program from the IRS Web site:

  www.irs.gov

  Rebate distribution

  schedule

  For Direct Deposit

  If the last two digits of your Social Security number are:	Your rebate should be deposited directly into your bank account by:
  00 – 20	May 2
  21 – 75	May 9
  76 – 99	May 16

  For Paper Checks

  If the last two digits of your Social Security number are:	Your rebate check should be in the mail by:
  00 – 09	May 16
  10 – 18	May 23
  19 – 25	May 30
  26 – 38	Jun 6
  39 – 51	Jun 13
  52 – 63	Jun 20
  64 – 75	Jun 27
  76 – 87	Jul 4
  88 – 99	Jul 11

  Source: U.S. Treasury,

  Internal Revenue Service

  • 12:55 pm
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