Tax Q&A: Is Last Year’s Stimulus Taken Out of This Year’s Taxes?
by Byrne Hobart
Categories: Uncategorized
It’s a common question in online tax forums: was last year’s stimulus check a gift? Or was it a loan? When the stimulus was passed, the economic situation looked bad. Now, it looks catastrophic. Getting an extra $600 then was a nice boost, but paying back $300 now (or more, with interest) could be awful.
The good news is that nobody is going to ask you to return your stimulus payment, and the cost of it won’t be deducted from your next tax refund. But that’s only because of how fungible money is, sometimes: the cost — $300 per taxpayer, plus $300 per dependent, less some exceptions for high-income earners, but plus some other tax incentives — comes out to … Read more...