Talk:Economic Stimulus Act of 2008

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Hey, all. Noob entry, so any advice would be welcome, as long is it is actually helpful. Please edit as you see fit, I suspect information will be coming fast in furious in the next few days and weeks. Would love to see some good references added.


Regarding the origin of the actual word "confumbo", it came out of my exhaustion-adled brain during a conversation while on a long bike ride with a colleague in the mortage industry. This entry is a first step in establishing what I think might be a useful addition to the American English lexicon. Jhanken (talk) 00:41, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, it is not a place for original research, and neologisms are to be avoided. I propose the article for deletion following Wikipedia:Deletion policy. Cenarium (talk) 00:51, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
I've tried to add a citation to the H.R. bill; hopefully that qualifies me to remove the deletion tag since this is a notable piece of legislation in the United States (and I can't find another article on it yet). I don't think any original research exists since it seems to be a direct summary of the bill. --shadytrees (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 02:53, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
Kudos to User:Marco polo for his expansion of the article. --shadytrees (talk) 22:09, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps add the expected date(s) that individual's will see their rebates. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.184.80.239 (talk) 00:20, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Name of article

The official name of the Act of Congress to which this article refers is "Economic Stimulus Act of 2008". The words "United States" do not appear in the name of the Act. Should the name of the article - and the name of the Act as shown in the article - be changed? Famspear (talk) 15:17, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, I went ahead and changed it! Famspear (talk) 15:27, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Question on the references

Reference 10 and 11 are identical. I am not knowledgeable enough to correct/edit the article with confidence. I suggest someone to apply appropriate action on those 2 references and how they are cited in the article. --Mondorescue (talk) 04:27, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

They are not the same. Although the article text is the same, the side bars and comments are different. I tried to use the appropriate article for the text in question. Dtaw2001 (talk) 23:47, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
If you are referencing from the comments section and/or the inset box, I suggest you specify that. Otherwise, it seems that you are citing two identical articles, which is redundant and confusing. --Mondorescue (talk) 07:42, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Does anyone know what is up with the comment about reference 10 being some NPR April Fool's joke? --Mondorescue (talk) 07:42, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

It's no joke. Dtaw2001 (talk) 01:32, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Stimulus check by mail if?

This article is the first time anywhere that i have seen that if you have used an online tax service and let them deduct their fee from your refund the stimulus check is sent by mail instead of direct deposit...So instead of getting mine april 28th i get to wait till like may20th. My last two digits are 10...woulda been first freaking day--96.13.244.117 (talk) 19:48, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] External Links

I made an edit to the website changing two links for calculating economic stimulus package from a commercial site which requires download (taxrebatecalculator.com by zango) to the IRS official calculator today. I may be wrong, but I think the IRS site is the best source for the information and without totally knowing all the Wikipedia policies I feel they'd discourage sponsorship of a particular site that requires a download of ad-sponsored material. Profiled by the media or not, the IRS [1] is the most authoritative source. Random9 sent me a message reading "please don't edit entries you dont know about. We made the Economic Stimulus Tax Rebate Calculator. It has been featured on all NBC.com and FOX.com affiliate and syndicate sites and WidgetBox.com. We added the post for the calculator to wiki as requested. Please don't modify the post any more. Please would prefer not to see the IRS till tax time." This sounds like commercial self-promotion. He seems to be spamming this entry with his edits. This isn't a personal attack, but a constructive criticism of his methods. I would like some other user input before I revert his changes. Thank you all. Somerut (talk) 09:29, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

I went ahead and changed it as I noticed all of the edits he had ever made were to link to domains he owned. This is shameless self-promotion for commercial gain. Input still invited. Somerut (talk) 09:47, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree; I have been reverting the links too. His behavior is not allowed. Tb (talk) 18:30, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Alaska PFD

I haven't been able to find any information on this, but it'd be something good to put in the article.

Does the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend count toward qualifying income? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tigman19 (talk • contribs) 18:56, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Calculating Refund Amount

Who decided to charge taxes according to income, but refund according to how many mouths you feed? I know families with numerous kids who paid less in taxes last year than they received in their Economic Stimulus check. How about basing the "refund" on a percentage of adjusted gross income or a percentage of taxes paid instead. This is turning into a form of unofficial welfare. I'd sure like to have received more money back than I paid last year in taxes. -Speedeep (talk) 03:17, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

The rebate is limited to $1200, in the case of a married couple filing jointly. If a family received the maximum payout and paid less than that in taxes last year, then according to the 1040 tax table, they earned less than $10,600 combined -- which is the equivalent of one person working for federal minimum wage for about 10 months, and then taking a 7-week (unpaid) vacation. I suspect you're correlating "amount you pay/receive in April" with "tax paid". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.81.170.62 (talk) 17:42, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Earlier refund means simpler process and less (or no) postage

If the decision was made earlier to give these refunds, we could have just added (if a refund was due) or subtracted (if taxes were due) right on our tax forms. This would have saved at least some of the $767 million the IRS estimated it cost them to issue these refunds after everyone filed their taxes. -Speedeep (talk) 03:17, 14 May 2008 (UTC)