2008 Economic Stimulus Payment and Your IRS Taxes

Last year the IRS was besieged by telephone calls regarding treatment of the 2008 economic stimulus payments. Complicating matters even further was the fact that some people who did not get a stimulus payment may still be due one, as this article by Anthony Ventre explains. It remains to be seen whether the Obama administration’s attempt at a stimulus will cause similar confusion, but it’s interesting to see how messy and complicated income taxes have become.

There were so many questions stemming from the 2008 Bush administration economic stimulus package that the Internal Revenue Service had to detail extra people to answer the barrage of questions from people who received it and people who didn’t. According to the IRS, there were 119 million tax payers who received these payments. Owing in part to the tough economic times, the Internal Revenue Service has noted an increase in early filers and a concomitant increase in tax errors in the current 2008 filing year.

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