I am remembering having to pay back my last tax rebate check in 2002.

[Saboburns]

In 2001 my wife and I received a $500 rebate check.

I'm fairly sure that when we did our 2002 taxes, this $500 came right off the top of our usual return.

I need your help DU,

She actually does our taxes using Turbo-Tax, and I want to be sure I'm not wrong.

Let me perfectly clear. I'm saying that the last tax rebate check was simply a cash advance on my future returns.

Is this correct??

[sam sarrha]

1. it wasnt a tax cut for the middle class ... it was just a LOAN

[meegbear]

2. You are correct, oh great one ...

it was spun as "it's your money, and you're getting it back". It was only a "cash advance".

[ThomWV]

3. I never got my check, it went to a past due student loan, so I had to pay at the end of the year

The amount they refunded to the past due loan, well, I had to pay it April 15. So what they did was take money out of their pocket, put it in their other pocket, and then send me a bill for it.

[Saboburns]

8. Bummer

That sucks.

Thanks everyone.

I thought that's how it was.

If I remember it correctly it was trumpeted as a tax cut, which actually went to the uber-rich, and we poor working sods paid it back.

Ah yes, Tricle-Down economics.

[Sal Minella]

4. Sounds like "PayDay Loans" on a very large scale, with the interest to be paid by our grandchildren

[ThomWV]

7. BINGO! We have a winner. That is a perfect analogy, absolutly perfect.

It could not have been said better.

[OzarkDem]

5. Recall the Clinton tax rebates were real

You didn't have to "pay them back". That's how real economic stimulus works.

[in_cog_ni_to]

6. Yes. It's a LOAN. Bank the money, draw interest on it and when they ask for it back,

send it to them. I wouldn't spend it, unless I absolutely had to to stay afloat. It's another freakin' scam perpetrated by the administration assisted by the Democrats in Congress.

[debbierlus]

9. Yep, Randi Rhodes talks about that fairly frequently

People were stunned that the tax rebate was nothing but a loan against next years rebate. That was it.

[Shadrach]

10. I didn't have to give my check back

But I had to pay taxes on it as income. But I hear people had to pay it back.

I am saving the money this time just in case I have to pay it back.