Money Blue Book

Death and taxes. You can try to fight them both tooth and nail, but at the end of it all, it’s a losing proposition. Especially when it comes to taxes, the government is going to want its fair share cut of your salary and business profits one way or another, whether you like it or not. Rather than engage in tax evasion and possibly live the remaining years of your life on the run as a tax fugitive from the long arm of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), you might as well confront the issue of taxes head on. All we can do is try our best to understand how income taxes work and take reasonable steps to minimize their effects on our financial lives as much as possible.

One of the most introductory ways to plan for the effects of income taxes is to recognize how the various marginal rates are applied to the corresponding tax brackets. Because the United States does not yet currently engage in a flat tax system, our taxable incomes are broken down into different taxation ranges with specific taxation percentages assessed depending on where they fall along the tax bracket spectrum. Although our 2010 tax returns won’t be filed until April 15, 2011, for planning purposes, it’s always good to find out the new changes to the tax code as early as possible. Let’s examine some of the upcoming tax rate changes that are being projected for 2010 and compare them to the previous year’s 2009 tax brackets.

Projections Of New IRS Tax Rates Have Historically Been Extremely Accurate

Year after year, even before the official IRS income tax brackets are released, a select number of tax experts have gotten together and crunched a determinative number of officially released statistics by governmental agencies – to project and extrapolate the upcoming year’s tax brackets. Year after year, the tax rate predictions released by these groups have yielded results in advance with near 100% accuracy. Such an income tax bracket projection ahead of time is possible because many of the major tax code numbers are pegged to officially released inflation statistics – including the standard deduction, the personal exemption, the actual income ranges of the tax brackets, and contributions limits for the investment retirement accounts (both the Traditional and Roth IRA account).

One of these tax prognosticating groups is the Tax Foundation, a Washington D.C. think tank which collects data and publishes research studies on federal and state tax policies. The other notable group operates under the auspices of the Wall Street Journal and is comprised of a merry band of private tax professionals and economists – namely William E. Massey, a senior tax analyst from the Tax and Accounting arm of Thomson Reuters; George Jones, a senior federal tax analyst from CCH; and James C. Young, an accounting professor from Northern Illinois University. For numerous years now, both the Tax Foundation and the Wall Street Journal group have consistently released to the public very accurate, albeit unofficial, early bird peaks at the following year’s projected income tax brackets based on available financial data – well in advance of the official IRS releases. If you’re eager to get a head start on tax year 2010, read on.

IRS Tax Rate Schedule Updates For Tax Year 2010

This year, citing a very sluggish economy and extraordinarily low inflation rates for 2009 to which upcoming 2010 tax rates shall be pegged to, the Tax Foundation and associated experts are predicting very little year to year change for the 2010 federal tax brackets. If there’s anything good that came out of this global economic recession that has been plaguing us for the entirety of 2009 – it’s that the combination of low gas prices, depressed consumer spending, and high jobless numbers with so many people filing for unemployment – have enabled inflation rates to stay quite low during the span of 2009 – at a mere 0.19%. Just compare that to the incredibly high inflation rate of 4.26% during the previous year of 2008 when gas prices were skyrocketing, and it’s clear the recent sudden and precipitous drop in inflation has been extremely unprecedented.

As a result of low inflation, for the most part the 2010 tax bracket ranges will likely stay relatively unchanged. As noted by the tax pundits, for the very first time since the IRS started to index the official federal income tax rates to inflation during the mid 1980’s, taxpayers will get virtually no significant benefit from inflation in 2010. As such – year 2010 tax brackets, standard deductions, personal exemptions, and even retirement account contribution limits will see very little (if any) alterations from prior year numbers.

I will update the table below to reflect the official IRS tax rates for 2010 if decidedly different numbers are ultimately released by the IRS. However, with tax bracket projections by the experts having enjoyed a near perfect accuracy rate for quite a few years now, I don’t have any reason to doubt that the displayed figures below will ultimately wind up as official.

Federal Income Tax Brackets For 2010 – Based On Taxable Income Ranges

Beyond some slight numerical shuffling of the taxable income ranges, there will not be too many significant tax changes from 2009 into 2010. Here is a breakdown of the projected changes (if any) for 2010 as they compare to the prior year:

• Personal Exemption: No change. For the very first time, the standard exemption for 2010 will not be going up and will stay unchanged at $3,650, the same as it was in 2009.
• Standard Deduction: No change, except for Head Of Household filers. The standard deduction for married couples filing jointly will remain unchanged at $11,400. For those filing as single, the standard deduction will remain at $5,700 as well. However, Head of Household filers will see a slight increase by $50 – from $8,350 (year 2009) to $8,400 (year 2010).
• Overall Tax Bracket Thresholds: Will increase across the board for all tax filing statuses, albeit at a significantly lower amount compared to past tax year increases.
• Annual Gift Tax Exclusion Amount: No change. For tax year 2010, the current gift tax exclusion limit of $13,000 will stay the same. Often overlooked by most taxpayers, the gift tax stipulates that gift givers must pay a special tax on gift amounts that exceed a certain amount per year.
• Traditional and Roth IRA Contribution Limits: No change. Despite the fact that IRA and Roth IRA contribution limits did not rise in 2009 in response to strong inflationary pressures in 2009, there will still be no corresponding change in the maximum contribution limits to individual retirement accounts for 2010. The standard IRA contribution limit for 2010 will remain unchanged at $5,000. The catch up contribution limit for those 50 or older will remain at $6,000 as well.

Update: New FDIC and NCUA Insured Limits Extended Until January 1, 2014

After months of bank failures and gloomy economic news, we finally have some good tidings from our federal government. No, it’s not another round of stimulus checks for those of you who have been hoping and waiting with bated breath, but rather, it pertains to the FDIC insurance that guarantees the safety and security of bank deposits.

The current increased FDIC insurance limits of $250,000 were scheduled to be rolled back to the previous $100,000 limits on the last day of 2009. However just recently, Congress voted to extend the deadline for four more years – through December 31, 2013. Those of us who have significant amounts of money in the bank or sizable funds invested into long term certificates of deposit (CD rates) undoubtedly have been nervously eyeing the impending December 31 expiration date of the $250,000 threshold. Thus this news ought to come as a tremendous welcomed relief. Those of us who have been considering renewing our certificates of deposit can now consider maturities with a longer time horizon without fear of falling outside of federally protected limits.

Avoid Banks That Are Not FDIC Insured, Or Credit Unions That Are Not NCUA Protected

As many of you may know, if you have money in a bank account, your bank deposits are generally insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) up to the maximum current limit of $250,000. Similarly, if you have money saved in a credit union account, your deposits are insured by the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) for the same amount as well. As federal government run entities, the two organizations jointly share in the responsibility of  insuring and regulating the stability & financial health of our nation’s banks and credit unions. All legitimate banks and credit unions operating in the United States are duly members of the relevant regulatory agency. If you are not banking at an FDIC insured institution, you’re taking a huge risk. Banks that are not FDIC insured are either international banks or scams (yes, bank Ponzi schemes do exist). While most reputable international banks offer some protection through their own governmental authorities, you will want to do everything you can to steer clear of the uninsured but high yield dealers calling themselves banks.

FDIC and NCUA deposit insurance offer the maximum peace of mind assurances available as they are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government. In the event of a bank or credit union failure, insolvency, or bankruptcy, the FDIC and NCUA have an orderly and systematic system in place to ensure a seamless and disruption free resolution. When banks fail, the FDIC takes over. They may sell the failed bank to another more stable bank (purchase and assumption method), or they may liquidate its assets and issue full payouts to customers (pay off method), making up any shortfall of funds from its own coffers. During any bank failure proceedings managed by the FDIC and NCUA, all interest income accrued up to the date of bank failure are guaranteed and paid out as well. Contrary to popular opinion, the FDIC and NCUA resolution processes are almost always very orderly and expedient, with little lag time and disruptions to account access during the resolution transition phase. For most customers in such an occurrence, a bank failure is a non-event as they are almost always permitted to continue using their customary bank services including checks, debit cards, and electronic transfers as before. At some point however, customers may be issued new cards, checks, or online banking information.

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)

Created by the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 in response to the massive number of bank failures during the Great Depression era, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) now services as a safety net for bank deposits in the event of a catastrophic insolvency emergency or rare run on the bank. Currently, FDIC insurance provides up to $250,000 worth of protection per depositor, per insured bank for the following accounts:

• Checking account (negotiable order of withdrawals)
• Savings and money market accounts
• Certificates of deposit and other time deposit accounts
• Cashier’s checks and other checks drawn on the member bank’s accounts
• Certain investment retirement accounts (IRA’s) in deposit based accounts

Not everything is covered. As a general matter, financial investments and bank conveniences such as – stocks, bonds, money market funds, annuities, insurance policies, and even bank safe deposit boxes are not covered by the FDIC.

Because the general coverage limit that FDIC insurance provides is $250,000 per depositor per bank, there is no sense in opening multiple accounts of the same type at any one bank to circumvent this restriction. The only way to exceed this mark yet remain fully protected under permissible limits is to either spread your money among different banks, or if you wish to stick with a single bank – open multiple accounts with different deposit categories of legal ownership. The FDIC recognizes eight different ownership categories – single accounts, certain retirement accounts, joint accounts, revocable trust accounts, irrevocable trust accounts, employee benefit plan accounts, corporation/partnership/unincorporated association accounts, and government accounts. As each of these different account ownership categories qualify for its own $250,000 insurance limit,  it is possible to have total deposits of more than $250,000 at any one insured bank and still be fully insured. To demonstrate, here’s an example and run through of how a married couple could hypothetically insure up to $2 million at any one bank:

• Husband and wife each deposits $250,000 in separate individual accounts
• Together, they have $500,000 in a shared joint account
• Individually, each has $250,000 in separate IRA deposit accounts
• Each also sets up a $250,000 revocable trust account, payable on death, naming the other one as beneficiary

Avoid banking with institutions or organizations that are not covered by federal government insurance. Particularly if you are a high yield savings account or bank rate chaser like myself, more likely than not you’ll come into contact with online banking names like Dollar Savings Direct, EverBank, Ally Bank, or even E-trade – bank names that are either unfamiliar to you or names whose reputations or stability concerns you haven’t fully vetted yet. While most reputable banks will clearly display their FDIC insured member logos, it’s always important to confirm this fact for yourself. Verifying your bank’s FDIC insurance coverage is easy – simply call the FDIC’s telephone number at: 1-877-275-3342, or preferably, visit the online FDIC Bank Find page. To find an institution by FDIC certificate number (every FDIC member institution carries one) or to search via geographical or statistical criteria, simply click on “More Search Options” via FDIC Bank Find for more choices. As the Bank Find website notes, the service can also help you answer pressing questions such as – Is my bank insured? Where are my bank’s branches located? Where is my bank’s home (main) office located? What is my bank’s web site address? What happened to my bank (historical list of events)? Does my bank have a new name? And Is my bank still open?

National Credit Union Administration (NCUA)

All legitimate credit unions in the United States offer deposit insurance protection for their account holders via the NCUA. The National Credit Union Administration is the independent federal agency that supervises and regulates the operations & stability of all federal not-for-profit credit unions.

Like the FDIC, the NCUA’s insurance limits are guaranteed by a federal fund that’s backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government, and as such, are 100% safe from catastrophic loss or insolvency. Now that the $250,000 coverage limits provided by the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund have been extended through December 31, 2013, credit union customers should be able to rest easier. Hopefully the higher protection limits will be extended into indefinite perpetuity or made legally permanent. Beats me why the FDIC and NCUA haven’t already done so.

If you have an account at a credit union, chances are your funds are protected by NCUA member insurance, with account protection rules and different account ownership categories that are similarly set up to run as that offered by FDIC insurance. However, to be sure, it’s always important to confirm that your credit union is a legitimate entity and fully insured before doing business with them. If you are unable to find a NCUA member placard logo displayed anywhere on the credit union’s website or store front, I’d recommend that you confirm its membership by calling the NCUA’s telephone number at 1-800-755-1030, or by preferably visiting the NCUA’s Is My Credit Union Federally Insured lookup page.

Update: Projected 2010 Tax Brackets Have Been Released!

The following represents the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)’s officially released 2009 federal income tax brackets. Read ‘em and weep – or perhaps rejoice, depending on where you stand on the whole federal income tax bracket sliding scale. Regardless, you’re going to be getting close and personal with the marginal rates when you file your 2009 tax return in early 2010. Let’s have a look at some of the tax changes shall we?

Official IRS Tax Rate Schedule Updates For Tax Year 2009

Via the Wall Street Journal, the following graphical table below gives you the official marginal tax brackets for married couples filing jointly as well as the marginal rates for single filers for 2009. The previous year’s numbers are also provided to give you an idea of some of the more noticeable changes since 2008. The income numbers listed in the chart below are taxable incomes, and thus they have taken into consideration all available personal exemptions as well as any of either the standard or itemized deductions, including all pre-tax above the line 401k and deductible IRA contributions.

As key portions of the marginal tax tables are pegged to inflation, quite a few numbers must be annually revised. Thus you will note that there are quite a few key changes for the 2009 tax year compared to the year prior. However, while overall tax numbers appear to have nominally increased on the whole, taking into consideration the effects of inflation, effective tax rates may actually have remained level or even dipped a bit.

Despite the text below that says “projected”, the official IRS numbers have been released and they now represent official federal income tax rate brackets, locked in for 2009.

To summarize, here is a run through of some of the more notable tax rate changes for 2009 and even a quick blurb about some of the key tax benefits that did not change based on official IRS releases thus far:

• Personal Exemption and Exemption For Dependents – Increased to $3,650 from $3,500 (up $150) from 2008, but is phased out at higher income levels.
• Standard Deduction – The great majority of American taxpayers take the standard deduction rather than itemizing deductions for expenditures such as mortgage interest, charitable contributions, and state & local taxes. The standard deduction increased to $11,400 from $10,900 (up $500) for married couples filing a joint tax return, increased to $5,700 from $5,450 (up $250) for singles and married individuals filing separately, and increased to $8,350 from $8,000 (up $350) for heads of household.
• Overall Tax Bracket Thresholds – Increased across the board for all tax filing statuses. This means that if your annual income did not increase since last year or if you did not receive an inflation based pay raise, you may likely pay a little less in taxes in 2009 than in 2008. As the IRS notes as an example on one of its press releases, in regards to a married couple filing a joint return, the taxable income threshold separating the 15 percent bracket from the 25 percent bracket is $67,900, up from $65,100 compared to tax year 2008.
• Earned Income Tax Credit – Increased to $5,028 from $4,824 (up $204) for low and moderate income workers and working families with two or more children. The income qualification limit to take the earned income tax credit (EITC) for joint return filers with two or more children also increased to $43,415 from $41,646 (up $1,769).
• Annual Gift Tax Exclusion Amount – Increased to $13,000 from $12,000 in 2008 (up $1,000). Often overlooked by people, the gift tax requires the gift giver to pay a special tax on the gift amount if it exceeds a certain amount per year. For 2009, that threshold will be bumped to $13,000.
• Social Security Contribution and Wage Benefit Base – Increased to $106,800 from $102,000 (up $4,800). This means that 2009 income sources over $106,8000 will not be subject to Social Security taxation. With the Social Security tax rate at 6.20%, this also means that the maximum a person will shoulder in Social Security taxes for 2009 is $6,622.
• Traditional and Roth IRA Contribution Limits – No change from 2008. Despite inflationary pressures that increased tax bracket rates across the boards, sadly, IRA and Roth IRA contribution limits will be staying the same – stuck at a crappy and paltry $5,000 per year for those under age 50, and $6,000 per year for those 50 or above.
• Roth IRA Contribution Limits (Income Threshold) – Increased to $166,000 from $159,000 (up $7,000) for married filing jointly couples, and increased to $105,000 from $101,000 (up $4,000) for singles and others.

Watch Out For Possible Upcoming 2010 Tax Bracket and Tax Rate Changes

While official IRS federal income tax brackets are not usually released for the following tax year until the late fall, it’s frankly never too soon to get your hands on the earliest reliable marginal tax bracket predictions. Year after year, a group of private tax experts and economists associated with the Wall Street Journal get together and crunch officially released inflationary data to provide news readers an early bird peak at the following year’s projected income tax brackets. This group, comprised of members from the Tax and Accounting arm of Thomson Reuters, tax analysts from CCH, and an accounting professor from Northern Illinois University – usually releases their annual tax bracket projections and estimations on tax deduction numbers for the following year during early fall (around September), well before the official IRS numbers are issued.

As marginal tax brackets track changes in inflation and other economic data fairly closely, the annual tax rate estimations by the Wall Street tax team members have yielded pretty reliable and on par results over the years. If you’re antsy to get a head start on tax year 2010, stayed tuned in very early Fall 2009 for the newest updates on the 2010 projected federal income tax brackets.

Because of the election of Barack Obama as the new President of the United States and the handover of the country to a new political party, there are bound to be substantial changes in the tax code and income tax rates in the coming years. Working on an economic stimulus plan and advocating aggressive social agendas, President Obama has already proposed numerous changes to the ordinary income tax rates, such as raising the top rate from 35% to 39.6% – potentially boosting the tax burdens of higher income earners to new heights. He has also suggested the need to reduce tax deductions for American households earning more than $250,000 annually, and has also made proposals to increase taxes on capital gains and stock dividends. With a political and taxation platform that is decidedly against those those in the higher upper echelons of the U.S. tax code, those who have done well for themselves over the years seemingly have a lot to fear in Mr. Obama. Personally, while I feel Obama is doing a commendable job on the social and foreign policy front, I hope he doesn’t get too carried away with his taxation ambitions. His remarks on taxes always make me nervous.

In the mean time, many of us regular taxpayers can only just ride along and hope for the best. Regardless of what Obama ultimately decides to do and no matter how federal income tax brackets eventually look like in 2010 and 2011, we should try to wisely structure our actions today to reduce our future tax burdens as much as possible, regardless of what happens. Such smart tax moves would include taking advantage of employer sponsored pre-tax perks like flexible spending accounts (FSA), and investing  in tax deferred retirement vehicles like 401(k)’s and Roth IRA accounts.

Tax Cuts, Social Spending, and New Jobs – But What About Stimulus Checks?

A second economic stimulus package for 2009 is on the way and from the looks of things in the news, it appears newly minted President Barack H. Obama and his Democrat controlled House of Representatives and U.S. Senate are determined to ram the lucrative spending proposals through the legislative meat grinder no matter what, much to the chagrin of skeptical and deficit-weary Congressional Republicans.

As Congress debates the wisdom and intricate details of the current version of the 2009 economic stimulus package, it’s clear that something needs to be done very soon to jumpstart and save our suffering economy before we spiral into a full blown economic depression. The unemployment rate is rising fast and everywhere you turn, there seems to be a never ending stream of unemployment and layoff news being announced everyday. The stock market has already shed more than half of its value since its peak in 2007, and billions to trillions of dollars worth of wealth have already been eliminated from the economy. Major banks and financial giants like Citibank, Bank of America, and JP Morgan Chase, once the financial pillars of our economy and the lifeblood of our credit industry, are now clinging onto U.S. government bailout money for dear life – hoping to still be in business at the end of every quarter.

With its almost limitless resources, it’s clear the federal government must intervene somehow and put this broken economy and financial system back on track to prosperity. But the question is – what should be the government’s role in all of this? More specially, what method should the government take to effectively jump start the economy to life again and ease the suffering on Main Street and Wall Street? Should the 2nd economic stimulus package continue to focus directly on sparking consumer spending by featuring a second round of free stimulus checks to consumers – perhaps for amounts much higher than the previous 2008 economic stimulus checks? Or should the plan this time around focus more on longer term indirect measures like job creation, infrastructure investment, and tax credits?

Current 2009 Economic Stimulus Package Focuses Less On Stimulus Checks – And More On Job Creation, Infrastructure Projects, and Tax Cuts

Before Barack Obama was elected president and during his 2008 Presidential election campaign, he supported implementing additional economic stimulus measures in 2009 – and even whispered at the rumored possibility of a second round of stimulus checks for taxpaying consumers in 2009 before tax day.

Whether a second stimulus check was a real possibility or not, the mere mention of a second round of stimulus payments and the prospect of getting more free government money certainly made my greedy ears perk up, but much of my optimism and enthusiasm were quickly dashed when Obama finally came into power. Almost immediately, he signaled a different stimulus proposal shift that favored a more multi-pronged approach of using tax cuts, tax credits, and pet projects, rather than relying on the 2008 economic stimulus check tactics of his predecessor, George W. Bush. Instead of just distributing free bailout money to the masses and hoping the funds will naturally trigger a huge surge in consumer spending activity to put the economy back on its feet again, Obama’s stimulus package focuses more on middle class tax cuts and massive increases in government spending to fund various infrastructure investments, green energy projects, financial aid to states, and social education initiatives – designed to create jobs and put people back to work.

The current 2nd economic stimulus plan laid down by President Obama for 2009 is a whopping, super-sized $825 billion economic rescue package containing staggering spending initiatives and ambitious tax cuts, and sprinkled with dozens of pork-based proposals and suspect social initiatives within hundreds of pages of legislation. The current package contains $300 billion worth of aggressive construction projects designed to improve the country’s  infrastructure and create millions of new artificially generated jobs in areas like health care, renewable green energy, school upgrades and repairs, and transportation related improvements. The package also contains about $200 billion worth of state social assistance provisions designed to help keep state sponsored health and unemployment programs well funded – to offer a measure of cushion for those people who have been recently laid off due to the economic down turn. Along with the state assistance portion are other safety net type provisions to help fund and keep afloat local food stamp programs, food banks, state sponsored health care, and governmental health insurance plans for those suddenly unemployed.

The other primary feature of the current Obama economic stimulus plan is the series of tax cuts and tax credits offered to qualifying individuals and small businesses. Under the tax cut portion of the stimulus deal, small businesses suffering losses because of the economic downturn and recession would receive more favorable tax loss write off terms.

For individuals, the current 2009 economic stimulus package offers pretty generous tax cutting proposals. The plan highly favors low and middle-income working families since the idea is that these income groups are more likely to spend and invest their tax savings rather than save the money. In terms of stimulating the economy, increased consumer spending is good, and consumer saving is bad. Nicknamed the “Make Work Pay Credit” by President Obama, the proposed tax credit is supposed to reach close to 95% of workers, and benefit even working tax filers without any tax liability – typically very low income workers. Here is a basic overview of the stimulus plan’s Make Work Pay Credit:

• Middle Class Tax Credit: Under the plan, there would be a tax cut amounting to $500 a year for individuals, and $1,000 for couples. The economic stimulus would be issued in the form of a tax credit, and would be limited to those making $75,000 or less ($150,000 or less for married workers filing joint tax returns).
• Low Income Tax Credit: For low income taxpayers, there would be an increase and expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit to provide a refundable tax credit for low income assistance. The expansion would affect even working tax filers without any actual net tax liability – typically very low-income workers – and allow them to potentially qualify for free stimulus tax refund credits.
• Child Tax Credit: For those who have children, a temporary increase in the child tax credit would result in larger tax refunds.

Should The 2009 Economic Stimulus Plan Be Re-Written Or Re-Packaged To Contain Major Provisions For A Second Economic Stimulus Check?

It’s too bad the eventual 2009 stimulus plan probably won’t contain another round of hefty stimulus check payments to ordinary consumers like the ones that were dished out last year. While the 2008 stimulus tax rebate wasn’t much (only a few hundred dollars in my case), some additional government handouts in higher dollar denominations would still have been greatly appreciated by individuals like myself and put to good use. Plus, as an American consumer who embraces the virtues of capitalism, I feel I would have made a better decision for myself as to how best spend my portion of the stimulus money pursuant to what’s in my own best capitalist self interest.

Overall, I think President Obama’s administration is probably right in its revised efforts to focus more on job creation, offering greater tax cuts, and enhancing safety net protections to help suffering Americans survive the economic downturn for the long term. Offering greater financial assistance to struggling state unemployment programs (many on them on the verge of running out of funds), and stimulating growth with more job building projects is a proven way to stabilize the markets and improve consumer sentiment. However, I’m still a bit disappointed that the President and Congress have not explored the prospect of an enhanced second stimulus check further.

At least for now, President Obama’s administration seems to have given up on the idea of using government stimulus checks en masse again to jump start the economy. Instead, Obama’s advisers have indicated that they would prefer searching for viable ways to get government stimulus money into the hands of American taxpayers quickly that would not require or duplicate the tax rebate checks of last year. Apparently the $150 billion spent in 2008 in the form of stimulus payments to consumers proved to be quite an economic failure and pointless exercise of futility in terms of actually stimulating the economy to any extended degree. But perhaps the reason it didn’t work properly the first time around was because too little money was given out to substantially change consumer spending habits to forcibly inject money back into the economy again (simply compare the $150 billion spent last year to the $800 billion-plus worth of spending being proposed for 2009).

Perhaps The Problem With The First Stimulus Checks In 2008 Was That They Were Too Little To Make Much Of An Impact

I have mixed feelings about the prospect of yet another around of direct stimulus checks to consumers. On one hand, I understand that there are many struggling American families getting hammered by higher living  costs, and suffering from the ills of unemployment and layoffs. However, I’m not entirely convinced that the idea of handing out free money to families will really solve all of our economic woes and jump start the economy at its core. But yet I still wonder if perhaps we gave up on the idea of stimulus checks too early and that maybe, the concept is still workable. Maybe the amounts issued in 2008 were simply to small to change anyone’s spending habits as initially intended – after all, only about $150 billion was spent in 2008, when the current 2009 economic stimulus proposal’s already ballooned to a whopping $850 billion.

I know when I received my tax rebate stimulus check in early 2008, the check only amounted to a few hundred paltry dollars – not really enough for me to go on a greedy spending spree. So instead of spending it and doing my part to stimulate the economy, I ended up doing what most people probably ended up doing with their tax rebate check – putting the money in a bank and depositing it into a high yield savings account. Of course, my plans for the money would likely have been very different if the amount wasn’t something low like $300, $600, or $1,200, but rather something as high as $10,000. If the stimulus check issued to me was indeed worth upwards of $10,000, I would very likely have saved a small portion of it but ended up plowing a sizable portion back into the economy by spending it on major expenditures like a new wide screen plasma TV set, new home appliances, or even a new car.

What If The Entire Economic Stimulus Bailout Package Went Towards 2nd Stimulus Check Payments? Would This Actually Stimulate The Economy?

Almost all polls among ordinary American consumers show overwhelming support for a second stimulus rebate check. After all, who would really oppose it? Who would be opposed to receiving free stimulus check money. Think the prospect of getting a second stimulus check worth as high as $10,000 as a consumer bailout is impossible? Well it’s probably unlikely, but it’s not out of the realm of financial or budgetary possibility, at least based on the fiscal numbers alone.

On CNN Money, a very interesting question was proposed in regards to the bank bailout and economic stimulus packages. If instead of bailing out these credit crisis-stricken banks (who probably deserve their fates due to the risky mortgage bets they greedily placed into subprime loans), we just gave all of the bailout money to taxpayers in the form of a massive consumer cash stimulus. How much would we each get if the entire current economic stimulus proposals were issued out to consumers as a second round of stimulus check payments? The second important question to ask is – would this actually stimulate the economy for the necessary extended period of time to get it going again?

To arrive at the figure, CNN Money took the total amount of the bank bailout package of $700 billion and added that to the proposed 2009 economic stimulus spending estimation at the time of $819 billion – resulting in a total bailout package of $1.519 trillion (that is quite a staggering figure). Dividing that number by 156.3 million, the total number of U.S. workers who filed federal income tax returns in 2008, that number equaled $9,718.49 per U.S. taxpayer, or roughly the equivalent of a juicy $10,000 cash bailout payment for each qualified tax payer. Now that’s stimulus with oomph! With $10,000 in our pockets in the form of instant windfall economic stimulus checks, it’s very likely that the tremendously high amount would be sufficient to incite a major change in spending activity than a measly $600 check ever could.  People would probably go out and actually start stimulating the economy by buying cars, purchasing TV’s, paying for college studies, and going on vacations.

As a dose of devil’s advocate inspired reality though, while it’s very possible that $10,000 checks in every working taxpayer’s hands would probably send the economy skyrocketing, it’s also possible the growth could be short lived and not actually get to the true root of our current economic problems. The massive surge in consumer spending probably won’t do much to solve the lingering fundamental issues surrounding our current credit crisis, which centers around a failed banking system and a failed home mortgage lending market. But then if repairing the banks and injecting confidence back into our home mortgage and credit lending markets are our primary objectives – I’m not sure the current economic stimulus proposals by President Obama, which are focused more on tax cuts and job creation and most prominently, aggressive social spending programs – will actually accomplish those goals. At least for stimulus checks, they could be able to help alleviate some of the immediate economic suffering being felt by ordinary consumers – many of whom are fighting to stay alive, with a great deal currently resorting to desperate emergency fund measures like 0% credit card offers, balance transfers, and risky high interest payday loans.

I’m curious as to everyone’s opinion on the wisdom of a second stimulus check (if it ever happened). What’s your take? Would substantially higher stimulus checks of $1,000, or possibly even as high as $10,000, actually encourage you to spend the money (thereby stimulating the economy) instead of merely saving the amount or using it to pay down debt? How would your decision compare to how you actually spent your previous 2008 tax rebate stimulus check?