Economic Stimulus Fake Out

When we were promised the Economic Stimulus, all we were told was you would receive $600 dollars, if you are married you would receive $1,200, and for every dependent child you would receive $300 of course if you made less than X amount. That means Tim and I were meant to get $1,200. Sweet right? We could definitely use it!

Todd and Amy only got $600 and $300 for their kid, Tim and Charlotte only got $600, Aaron got $300, I don't think Billy and Ally have received anything and neither have Tim or I. When I was promised $1,200 and got NOTHING, I was pretty mad, so I decided to do some research. I found out that when they said you would get it in May, what they really meant was they will start sending them out in May, but it depends on the last two digits of your SSN when they mail it. Tim and I wont have ours mailed to us until June 20th. So maybe the end of this week or early next week we should get something. That makes me a little less upset.

Then the question comes up, why did people we know get less than promised and will that happen to us? So I went through the IRS's FAQ's. Here's what I found:

Q. I received my stimulus payment, but it was less than what my friends and neighbors received. Why?

A. Your economic stimulus payment is based on information provided on your 2007 income tax return.

Many but not all taxpayers qualify for the maximum basic payment of $600 for singles or $1,200 for married couples. Many parents are also receiving an additional $300 for each qualifying child, born after Dec. 31, 1990.

Your payment may be less than the maximum for one or more of the following reasons:

• You are single and your net income tax liability is less than $600. If you file Form 1040 net income tax liability is the amount shown on Line 57, plus the amount on Line 52.
• You are married and your net income tax liability is less than $1,200.
• You are single and your adjusted gross income (AGI) is more than $75,000. On Form 1040, AGI is the amount on Line 37.
• You are married filing a joint return and your AGI is more than $150,000.
• You owe back taxes that reduced your payment.
• You have non-tax federal debts such as unpaid student loans or child-support obligations that reduced your payment.

These might help some people. I then found an Economic Stimulus calculator to figure out how much we should be getting shortly. It came up with $600. What happened to $1,200? I don't know what the net income tax liability is, but that probably has something to do with it. But Tim also has student loans that aren't federal. The calculator didn't ask about that so we might be getting even less.

We should find out by next week. I'll let you know, but it really bugs me. What happens to "if you're poor (a.k.a. make less than a certain amount) you WILL get $1,200??" Jerks.