Is the 2008 Stimulus Payment Check Taxable?
2008 saw the government try to pep up the economy by giving taxpayers handouts in the form of stimulus checks. When preparing your taxes for 2008, you are probably wondering is the 2008 stimulus check taxable?
2008 was a year of reckoning. Years of living high on the hog of home equity went splat as the housing bubble sank faster than a steel safe on the Titanic. It was a very ugly year. When home equity dried up, so did the money for consumers to buy things. For a consumer based economy, nothing could have been worse.
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One approach to remedying it was for the government to send us all a check. Depending on your filing status, you received up to $1,200. Go spend it! This was the creed from the government. Obviously, it was a rather simpleminded approach to the coming economic disaster and, as expected, did nothing to hold off the deluge of bad news.
As you sit down to prepare your taxes for the 2008 year, you are inevitably going to run into the question of whether that stimulus check you received is taxable. There is massive confusion on the subject because the IRS couldn’t give a simple answer. Instead, it had to create a 29 line form that would confuse God himself. The situation is so confusing that many of the tax preparation software firms even interpreted the form incorrectly and gave people the wrong answer.
Is the 2008 stimulus payment check taxable? NO! That being said, you do have to report the amount you were paid on your 1040 return. If you fall into the designation where you have to fill out the 29 line IRS form – don’t. Just leave the line blank. How can I say this? The IRS realized that the issue was so confusing that this is what they are telling taxpayers to do now.
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If you are uncomfortable leaving the form blank, contact the software company you purchased your software from. Make sure you have the updated software. Those companies that made the mistake have fixed it by now.
Taxes will eventually be going up. Someone has to pay for all this money being spent. Sooner or later, it will be you and I. Fortunately, the 2008 stimulus check is tax free.