When's My Money Coming?

While Congress and the President keep talking about rebate checks, the real question on everyone's lips is: When? The answer is that the IRS would probably start mailing out checks at the end of June , assuming Congress and the President did this thing quickly. The real question, though, is whether you'd get a check even if you didn't owe any income taxes. If you had to pay $800 (or $1,600 for marrieds) in income taxes to earn the full rebate, fully 40 percent of the country wouldn't qualify. But, if our illustrious leaders make it "fully refundable," meaning that you'd get a "rebate" even if you didn't pay that much in taxes, it would basically be a rebate on your Social Security payments. But Jason Furman of the Brookings Institute swears that it wouldn't affect the so-called Social Security Trust Fund in the least, so I guess that's ok then. [ CNN ]