I Pit the Tax "Rebate"

The BBQ Pit
181

Nothing, but it won’t make any difference.

The prebate represents a reduction in your tax liability. The only way you benefit from the amount being based on your 2007 income is if your 2008 taxable income results in a total tax liability of less than what you got a rebate for.

It’s complicated to explain without drawing charts. I tried to type it out here, with the 2001 rebate: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=9460128&postcount=9

Consider the following analogy:
You want to buy a computer, so you’ve been saving money up for a year. You figure the computer will cost about $2000, so you’ve been putting $200 a month away for the year.

So, at the end of the year, you go to the store with your $2400, ask to get the computer, pay the $2400, it only costs $2000, and get $400 back in change (aka “refund”)
Or, you go with your $2400, but it costs $2500, so you have to pay an extra $100 not from your account (aka you “owe taxes”).

Now, consider in the middle of the year, the manufacturer looks at a survey they sent you last year where you said you might like to buy a $2000 computer this year, and sends you a $1000 refundable coupon for any computer they make, if you get one less than $1000, you get to keep the change.
But the process for spending the coupon is to cash it in for full cash value at one desk before buying the computer at another.

So, at the end of the year, you take your $2400 to the store, cash in the $1000 coupon, buy the $2000 computer, and have $1000 from the coupon and your $400 change - $1400 total (“refund” plus “prebate”)
or, at then end of the year, you buy the $2500 computer, cash in the $1000 coupon, so you paid $100 extra, leaving you with $900 total (“pay taxes” plus “prebate”)
or, after getting the coupon, you decide to only save $175 for months 7-12, so you take $2050 and the coupon to the store, and leave with $50 in change and the $1000 from the coupon - $1050 total (“refund” plus “prebate” with adjusted w9)
or, you decide you don’t want but maybe a $500 computer and switch to saving $50 a month. The computer company uses the survey they sent you last year and sends you the $1000 coupon anyway. After you get the coupon, So you go to the store with the $600 you saved up, plus the $1000 coupon. You buy a $600 computer, and keep all the the money from the $1000 coupon, but they guy at the cash desk tells you that had they known you only wanted a $600 computer, they would have only sent you a $250 coupon (“changing tax brackets” and keeping the “prebate”)

182

So…the government’s giving away computers?

:stuck_out_tongue: :wink:

183

Sure, with free internet service! That always on! Even when you try to turn it off, its on. And one of those cameras. Its always on, too.

184

And you are stealing from your children to pay for Social Security and Medicare. I suppose you think that’s fair, because it’s a program you agree with.

185

Well, sure, kids are the primary cause of old age. Wasn’t for them, we’d have had the good sense to live fast and die young.

186

Not at all. What we pay today is just that much less they will have to pay tomorrow. Unlike you, we pay our bills as they are incurred. Balance the budget, even if that means raising taxes.

187

Dunno if this would be better in the current minirants thread, but… stupid fucking taxes.

As a dyed in the wool Social Democrat, I don’t mind sending a check for the $956 we owe to the Feds on April 14. I feel fortunate that we did well enough last year to be bumped up a tax bracket.

But it strikes me as vaguely ridiculous that those same Feds are then going to turn around and send me a check for $900 (wife’s on disability) in May.

Hell, can’t I just send them three twenties and we’ll call it even?

Pendejos…

188

Read post #173.

189

Citing your own post is the lamest tactic on the boards, and you should stop.

190

No, that’s (perhaps) the second lamest tactic. The first would be to simply never respond to certain posts. ahem

191

Far as I can tell, you haven’t even posted to this thread until now. What am I supposed to be responding to, exactly?

192

You obviously haven’t read it.

193

Perhaps he’s referring to post #173.

At least, that’s the way it looks from here.

194

Ah. There’s a reason I included the parenthetical “perhaps” in that last post. So, I’d bump “citing your own post” down to (perhaps) the third lamest tactic, supplanted for second by “you haven’t even posted to this thread until now” as a lame tactic. Which, of course, logically applies to every poster at some point in a discussion. However, since it’s almost never done (this is the first time I’m seeing it), it probably doesn’t really deserve mention.

You might respond to eulalia’s post #177. Or to BrainGlutton’s post #173. Perhaps you’d like to respond with a list of acceptable governmental funding sources, then a justification of applying those funds to the current war rather than domestic programs. Hell, you might even respond by laying out your GUTTs (Grand Universal Theory of Taxes).

Whatever you do, it doesn’t change the legitimacy of making the very narrow point that I don’t think “citing your own post” is the “lamest tactic”, not under these circumstances – honestly, I think not responding to posts is far lamer. Furthermore, to my eyes, even when you do respond, your posts tend to be mostly non-substantive, talking point sound bites rather than actual arguments.

Oh, and for the record, I agree with your original point, so long as it’s limited to the very narrow definitional stricture “a non-taxpayer cannot get a tax rebate”. Congratulations, Humpty-Dumpty, on understanding that a word has a meaning attached to it. That you somehow used that semantic quibble as a springboard into all the other crap that has spewed forth from your keyboard is truly a remarkable feat.

195

I was thinking about this a bit more, and realized that “you haven’t even posted in this thread” may have been a simple request for more information. If so, then I apologize for interpreting it as hostile.

However, the rest of my post stands as is. (That’s post #194; oooh, I feel so naughty engaging in the second lamest tactic on the board.)

196

Post # 177 was irrelavant. Gasoline taxes, FICA, Medicare and his/her rent payments have nothing to do with an income tax “rebate.”

Post # 173 was more of the same as far as BG is concerned. A link to a lefty, oops, “progressive” website, with nary an arugument of his own.

197

Gah, you suck. Go back and read the post you made that eulalia was addressing. Follow it back a couple more steps; it’s only a few spins of your mouse wheel. The entire line of discussion at that point was FICA. As to BrainGlutton’s post, an honest debater would refute the substance – and it actually is a substantive quote – rather than dismiss the source out-of-hand. Or worse, ignore it, because addressing it would take time and effort.

Y’know, I’d like to think you’re just dense, but I don’t. Rather, I think you’ve over-learned the recent Republican tactic of spouting trite, easily digestible sound bites that torture reason and avoid actual thought. Anne Coulter-ish sound and fury that signifies nothing (but sure does engender vitriol).

A sad, sad waste of time. You should stop.