by Jerry Coon

It’s almost last call for the Stimulus Payment checks. October 15 is the final day that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Treasury Department will accept 2007 tax returns and process them for the Stimulus Payment checks.

The IRS, which is a department within the Treasury Department, receives and processes the tax return. The Treasury Department actually issues checks based upon the information on the tax return, and distributes those checks. They recently announced that 1.147 million Stimulus Payment checks were issued in September. Those checks totaled up to $672 million dollars. Since the Treasury began issuing checks on April 28, including those September checks, 115.957 million checks for $94.61 billion dollars have been distributed. The Treasury might be printing this money but at least they are giving it back to the general American populace.

According to the Treasury, there are still many individuals out there who qualify for a payment but have not submitted a 2007 tax return. There is a barrier to entry in many government programs. The barrier to entry in this case is that 2007 tax return - no 2007 tax return, no Stimulus Payment.

We, as tax professionals, have been asked to make one last appeal to the public to make sure that mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, friends, neighbors, and acquaintenances who do qualify have filed that 2007 tax return, so that the IRS can process it and the Treasury Department can issue that person a Stimulus Payment. It just takes $3,000 of Social Security or veteran’s benefits to qualify, so even if a tax return is normally not required, it should be filed. Contact any local tax professional should there be questions.

The rescue bill passed by Congress and signed by the President last week has several tax provisions that will affect many taxpayers. Most of these provisions were set to expire at the end of 2007, but will now apply to 2008.

The above-the-line deduction for up to $4,000 of educational expenses is extended. For anyone with children in a college, this is a welcome renewal.

The $250 educator expense is extended. For those in the education business, this is a small, but nice, deduction.

The sales tax or state income tax deduction is extended. For those itemizing deductions, this is an option that must be looked at. Taxpayers are allowed to calculate sales tax paid on big purchases such as automobiles, trucks and motor homes along with an amount based on total income. If the sales tax amount is larger than the Michigan withholding, the taxpayer can take the sales tax deduction.

Finally, the charitable mileage rate is increased to the medical mileage rate and is now changeable by the Treasury. Before this bill, the charitable rate was stuck for some time at 14 cents per mile and only Congress could change that rate. Now, the rate will be 27 cents per mile and the IRS will have the power to change the rate as it sees fit. The IRS already has the ability to change the regular business mileage rate, and they increased that rate from 50.5 cents to 58.5 cents per mile earlier this year.

These are all welcome changes for individual taxpayers and should save them tax dollars. Thank you, Congress. As more is known about this recently passed legislation, I will pass that information on in future articles. This is Jerry Coon signing off.