Some States Delaying Tax Refund Payments
Some states suffering severe, recession-induced budget problems are holding off on paying tax refunds to people and businesses.
North Carolina, Hawaii and Alabama are already doing it and others, such as New York and Kansas, might.
The states are holding or may hold onto your money as long as they can because they need to use it for other purposes, tax expert and attorney Barbara Weltman told "Early Show" Saturday Edition" co-anchor Chris Wragge.
You'll eventually get your refund, but when depends on where you live, she explained. Laws differ from state-to-state, but most states have to issue a check (or direct deposit) within 45 days from April 15 or the date the return was filed, whichever is later. So, if you filed your return in February, the refund isn't due until 45 days after April 15. Some states have even longer — up to 90 days — to issue the refunds without having to pay interest.
Weltman, who wrote "J.K. Lasser's 1001 Deductions & Tax Breaks 2010" (Wiley), says she sees this becoming a long-term problem because, even if the economy recovers, many states will have huge leftover budget gaps.
"I think the best strategy for tax payers is to avoid the need to get a refund — which is really just an interest-free loan you've made to the government," she observed.
That means lowering how much you have taken out of your paychecks for taxes, and getting that money up-front, upping your take-home pay but shrinking or eliminating your refund, so you're not waiting for the government to issue the refund check.
Other ways Weltman says you can try to avoid being subject to the refund delays:
• If you're owed a refund, file as soon as you can. The states will likely process refunds in the order the returns came in. The sooner you file, the faster you'll get your refund, even with delays.
• Follow changes in tax laws enacted during the course of the year, on both the federal and state levels, because they could impact your withholding. For example, we may have a federal jobs bill soon, and it's almost certain to contain tax breaks.
• Work with a tax professional. He or she will help you stay abreast of what's happening and make sure you're not overpaying your taxes.
Copyright 2010 CBS. All rights reserved. North Carolina, Hawaii and Alabama are already doing it and others, such as New York and Kansas, might.
The states are holding or may hold onto your money as long as they can because they need to use it for other purposes, tax expert and attorney Barbara Weltman told "Early Show" Saturday Edition" co-anchor Chris Wragge.
You'll eventually get your refund, but when depends on where you live, she explained. Laws differ from state-to-state, but most states have to issue a check (or direct deposit) within 45 days from April 15 or the date the return was filed, whichever is later. So, if you filed your return in February, the refund isn't due until 45 days after April 15. Some states have even longer — up to 90 days — to issue the refunds without having to pay interest.
Weltman, who wrote "J.K. Lasser's 1001 Deductions & Tax Breaks 2010" (Wiley), says she sees this becoming a long-term problem because, even if the economy recovers, many states will have huge leftover budget gaps.
"I think the best strategy for tax payers is to avoid the need to get a refund — which is really just an interest-free loan you've made to the government," she observed.
That means lowering how much you have taken out of your paychecks for taxes, and getting that money up-front, upping your take-home pay but shrinking or eliminating your refund, so you're not waiting for the government to issue the refund check.
Other ways Weltman says you can try to avoid being subject to the refund delays:
• If you're owed a refund, file as soon as you can. The states will likely process refunds in the order the returns came in. The sooner you file, the faster you'll get your refund, even with delays.
• Follow changes in tax laws enacted during the course of the year, on both the federal and state levels, because they could impact your withholding. For example, we may have a federal jobs bill soon, and it's almost certain to contain tax breaks.
• Work with a tax professional. He or she will help you stay abreast of what's happening and make sure you're not overpaying your taxes.
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I am self-employed so I pay quarterly estimated taxes. States have computers that run all day long to see if I am ever in arrears. Yet they think that it's OK for them to stiff me if I pay them too much.
citigroup informed it's customers maybe a week and a half ago that they were changing their transaction policy. Now, they are able to withold the release of any customer funds on all acounts, whether they be checking, savings, cd's, ira's, etc. I'm not saying they are going to do it, but this allows them the possibility to say "no" if at some point you wanted to withdraw your own money. Now, the reason I am bringing this up is that I was at my bank yesterday, Cal National which is now U.S. Bank, and they had a sign saying the same thing. The only reason I can think of for them doing this is that they are protacting themselves from any run on banks. Look to see if anything like this happens at your banks.
jgg000100, I know I jump on your crap often brother, but in the end we all suffer. It is not only up to me to think critically about my adopted ideology, you have to also.
We lack all of the foundations that FDR had when we came out of the Depression.
1) we are not dependent of OPEC for our oil needs. We only have 70 billion in actual proven reserves. We consume 7.5 billion a year, that would be about 6 years of energy autonomy and we would have very little oil reserves left. Oil is not just used for fuel, it is used in a vast number of products that would also dissapper.
2) FDR re-regulated the Financial Sector. Obama has not done this; either he is hamstrung or he is one of the corporatist who allowed Deregulation of the Financial sector to ravage our economy.
3) NAFT and CAFTA like "Free Trade" laws that have forced us to compete with nations that have zero labor, product safety and environmental laws. God, this should not be a partisan issue. Both sides support this absurd economic strategy. So either they do not understand economics or they are obsessed with short term gain at the expense of the survival of our nation.
"...The housing bubble, by itself, would not have precipitated the current panic. The panic was created by Wall Street selling credit default swaps without sufficient backing; by Wall Street packaging subprime mortgages and selling them as AAA securities, i.e. fraud..."
Saucy this isn't true because if Wall Street WASN'T misrepresenting those subprime loans by bunding them in securities, then nobody would have bought them and the money would then not have been available to the banks to make further subprime loans, and the bubble never would have happened, or it would have died out before it got big.
The actual truth is that your asking a chicken-and-egg question, trying to assign blame to the banks, and not to the people out there flipping the homes. In truth, the banks knew what they were doing, the flippers knew what they were doing, both worked in a symbiotic relationship and both hoped that the game of musical chairs would never end. The flippers who caused the bubble are just as much at fault, and couldn't have existed without the subprimes - yet the subprimes couldn't have existed without flippers ready to take out those kinds of loans.
There were many smaller "flippers" jumping on board in the end whom probably had no idea even what a bubble is. These day trader like flippers were enticed by the concept that was marketed vigorously that your house is an investment that will continue to increase in value exponential and eternally.
It is no different in my mind than the concept of perpetual growth that our entire economy is predicated on. Not only is the theory of a unregulated markets policing themselves a fallacious self serving lie, so is the idea that an economy can grow infinitely within the confines of a nation, continent and ultimately the planet. Soon enough, the lie unravels and leaves devastation in its wake.
Are we a Nation or not? Can we agree on anything? Because I am getting to the point where I do not care. When this nation bleeds out from a thousand cuts, it will not be my blood that is spilled exclusively, we will bleed together.
Obama has done nothing to re-regulate the financial sector. All the "growth" in the Stock Market has been in the Financial Sector. It is bubble time all over again, but this time, their will be no pretense of recovery. The Government "stimulus" is the last bubble. Progressives and "fiscal conservatives" alike need to face this hard truth.
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Commentators say that's what triggered the stock market meltdown and the freeze on credit. They've specifically targeted the mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which the federal government seized on Sept. 6, contending that lending to poor and minority Americans caused Fannie's and Freddie's financial problems.
Federal housing data reveal that the charges aren't true, and that the private sector, not the government or government-backed companies, was behind the soaring subprime lending at the core of the crisis.
Subprime lending offered high-cost loans to the weakest borrowers during the housing boom that lasted from 2001 to 2007. Subprime lending was at its height from 2004 to 2006.
Federal Reserve Board data show that:
* More than 84 percent of the subprime mortgages in 2006 were issued by private lending institutions.
* Private firms made nearly 83 percent of the subprime loans to low- and moderate-income borrowers that year.
* Only one of the top 25 subprime lenders in 2006 was directly subject to the housing law that's being lambasted by conservative critics.
The "turmoil in financial markets clearly was triggered by a dramatic weakening of underwriting standards for U.S. subprime mortgages, beginning in late 2004 and
I guess you missed that part about TAXES?
Maybe you should look at Chain's ZERO% capital gains tax for starters. Generally speaking cost of capital and cost of labor are the 2 biggest expenses for any business. Especially for small businesses that generate most new jobs. Try a refresher in ACCT101.
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The marginal tax rate today is 35 percent. It was 50 percent during the singe wage earner 1950's and 60's.
What you are doing is called scapegoating. You refuse to acknowledge that it could be deregulation that has rended our economic foundations asunder. And honestly, I have no idea why. The only thing that I can think is that you are so rabidly bipartisan that you would rather pluck your eyes from there sockets than have to deal in rational discourse with your perceived "enemies."
Your zealotry is frightening.