Rebates for stay at home moms?  

If she isn't working then how would she file a return at all without him? You have to pay into the government to be entitled to money back from them.

I am currently on workers compensation and since no taxes are taken out of my checks I am not entitled to receive a refund this year even though I am still responsible for supporting 4 kids on less than 66% of my gross income.

So I think that their tax preparer is right on the money on this one. If she isn't paying out taxes she isn't entitled to her own separate refund.

Well, the IRS is not providing any eligibility info as of yet on their website. I have heard it 2 different ways. One - is similar to the way your friend was told: if you file Married Filing Jointly but only 1 of you works, you will be receiving the Singles rebate plus kids.

On the other hand I've heard it goes by household, not individual, therefore if you file Married Filing Jointly, even if only 1 of you works you'll still get the Married rebate plus kids. - This one to me makes the most sense to me because it's less work for the IRS. Why would they want to examine each joint filing to see if 1 or both individuals were working?

I'm not sure how it is going to work, and all I can do is say that we have to wait and see, I don't think that take preparers are even informed as to how it will work, if I do or do not get any income....

the way it read is if you filed jointly and had a combined income of x you would rreceive 600.00 per married couple.

I'm not counting hte money until its in my hands

Mooch

Oh she sits around the house, watching "Young and the Restless" and eating bon bons. She is working but the government does not consider housework as work and if her husband is a cheapskate, which I suspect, she will not receive any of that rebate, he will have it all.
That is unfair. In Canada we had family allowance something like your aid to dependent children that were taxable at a lower rate until some blooming government idiot told of the wealthy banker's wife (as if all bankers are kind souls who will give money to their wives. Haven't they heard of Scrooge?") But that was for the kids and not for the wife. So no matter what, a stay at home wife is only dependent on the monies her husband brings in and has no money except what he gives her.
Find out her situation, and suggest if she get an allowance, to save as much of the money as possible. At least the interest on that will be her money, but unless she gets an outside job, no tax rebate.

when filing a joint return both couples are the taxpayer and the refund recipient. Both couples must sign the document - and both are liable for willful deceit should there be any.

that is what joint is about - the married couple as one - the household income as one.

when the check comes to you it will have both names on it and both parties must sign for it.

They treat all couples equally rather working or not. When they first did the taxes that way most families were one income families and that's why the deduction for a married couple isn't double a single head of house hold. I'm all for a flat tax where every body pays the same percentage regardless but I can bet that will NEVER happen!

I just finished reading an article that indicates your friend's tax preparer may be mistaken. Here's the quote:

"Married taxpayers who file joint returns will get a maximum rebate of $1,200. That's double the maximum possible rebate amount for single filers. Again, it could be less than that, depending on your tax liability. But don't worry if only one spouse earned the income. Filing jointly is all that's necessary."

Basically, since we only have to file your taxes as we normally do for the government to judge if we qualify, it doesn't really matter if the tax preparer was wrong (so long as he gets the rest of the tax laws right...).

Here's the rest of the article for those that are interested:
http://www.bankrate.com/b...

Having been a tax preparer, I can tell you I had a man and wife come in to file. Neither had been working so no EARNED income. They had disability for him, but no earned income. The rebate most advertised had to do with families, but the requirement was that there had to be earned income. I suspect this was the one they were after. The couple I refer to had read that stay at home mom's could have a rebate based upon the number of children, and was indeed to help families. however, it was based upon there being earned income, not passive sources such as disability payments, r investment income. I know how hard it was to explain this to this couple, so I am thinking it was one of those kinds of rebates, where there must be earned income to deal with. Social security is not earned income, nor are any of the incomes many families rely upon. Now in the case I refer to, the husband promptly told his wife she had to start a day care (as if she did not have enough to do with 4 kids) so that they would have earned income to show so they could get the tax benefit. (he also did not appear to me to be suffering any disability but that is another issue entirely.)

Taxes are taken/ levied against all forms of income, passive or earned, so refunds (as opposed to rebates) are based upon all income. If you need a good tax preparer, I would recommend your local Liberty Tax Service since they will be happy to answer you questions before you commit to using them to file your taxes (and I have never seen any Liberty Tax preparer try to pressure you into using them.) They will not give you a tax return filled out, but they will work up the whole return before hand so you can make a choice as to filing on your own or going somewhere else.

I don't do taxes anymore. There is a difference between a rebate and a refund.

Wouldn't you get a rebate in both of your names? I mean, You couldn't file alone as you don't have an income but you could file jointly for the rebate i think. I really don't know but I would think that's how it would work. The last rebate we got, we all had to file similar as if we were filing our income taxes.

Based on their joint tax return, the two of them receive a rebate together. The title of the post is "rebates for stay at home moms?" so that would lead one to believe that they have children. The joint rebate is increased based upon the number of children they have.

She should feel lucky she's getting a rebate. There are many people out there who earn less than $3,000 a year and won't get one. My mother-in-law, who is retired and living on Social Security, sure could use some extra money. The whole point of the rebate is to put money back into the economy. From what I've read, the majority say they will use the money to pay off loans and such. That's not what the intention is for the rebates. Our senior citizens, who have minimal bills, would definitely put that money back into the economy. Yet they're not the ones receiving the rebates.

The question to ask is this - who comes up with this crap?