Feb 01 2010
$400 tax credit is a JOKE!
Remember the $400 tax credit in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009?
IT ISN’T A TAX CREDIT!
The only thing it does is it reduces your payroll withholdings by $400 for the year, but on tax day you need to pay back the $400. Wow, great way to screw people over.
Yeah, and I just found out the hard way by doing my taxes. And I already spent my stinkin’ $400.
What you hear about the only people getting burned are people who work two jobs and therefore get double the withholding applied (one from each employer) and therefore need to pay it back is false. If you work one job, you still need to pay it back. There was no tax credit.
When more and more people realize this in the coming weeks, retail sales are going down the potty.
Man I want to short some stock.
UPDATE (same day): You’re kidding me. Schedule M? That one form is worth $400 if you are single and you make under $75k. Dude man, if you forget to fill out Schedule M, it’ll suck to be you.