Okay, it's official! Thank God they came up with a plan to save us all...
news.yahoo.com
(visit the link for the full news article)
WASHINGTON - Congressional leaders announced a deal with the White House Thursday on an economic stimulus package that would give most tax filers refunds of $600 to $1,200, and more if they have children.(visit the link for the full news article)
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Congress would act on the agreement — hammered out in a week of intense negotiations with Republican Leader John A. Boehner and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson — "at the earliest date, so that those rebate checks will be in the mail."
But some experts say it could be summer before Americans see any real cash.
The goal for both Democrats and Republicans is to get the money into the hands of consumers as soon as possible.
First the Internal Revenue Service has to cut the checks. That's the tricky part.
The earliest the IRS could start mailing out checks is the end of June, since the agency is now in the middle of the 2007 tax-filing season, experts said.
"It is remarkable that the world's leading economic power can't get checks out the door faster than that," Peter Orszag, the director of the Congressional Budget Office, told the Senate finance committee on Tuesday. "But it's a reflection of the fact that the IRS's infrastructure is in a state that's under pressure and consumed, again, with the normal tax-filing season."
An IRS spokesman declined to comment.