Let’s face it - we all like to get things for free, especially money!

It used to be free Government cheese, now it’s free Government money. OK, maybe not entirely free since it is based on your income and other factors such as if you are single or married and how many kids you have, if you made at least $3000 last year etc.

This is all part of the Economic Stimulus Package recently passed by our U.S. Government. This basically means that the Gov is giving you money to spend on things and help out the ailing economy, thus the term “stimulus”.

I am not sure if it’s going to work and from what I have heard from leading economists, it won’t help because people are just going to either sit on the money or pay off bills and debts. I will take it no matter what, spend it and do my small part to help America out.

Below is the newly released I.R.S. schedule for the Economic Stimulus payments. So check it out, match up your Social Security number and start making plans for your free Gov money.

This is from the I.R.S.

“Stimulus payments will be sent out in the order of the last two digits of the Social Security number used on the tax return.

Because the IRS will use the Social Security number to determine when checks are mailed, taxpayers may receive their checks at different times than their neighbors or other family members. On a jointly filed return, the first Social Security number listed will determine the mail-out time.

The IRS expects to make about 34 million payments within the first three weeks after the payment schedule begins May 2. With more than 130 million households expected to receive stimulus payments, more than 25 percent of the payments will be made in the first three weeks.

Taxpayers who choose direct deposit on their federal income tax returns can expect to receive their economic stimulus payments between May 2 and May 16 provided their returns were received and processed by April 15, 2008. For taxpayers who did not choose direct deposit on their tax return but whose returns were processed by April 15, the paper checks will be in the mail starting May 16, with the initial mailings completed by around July 11.”

If you would like to use the I.R.S. calculator to calculate how much free Gov money you might get, go to IRS Payment Calc, plug in some figures and find out what the magic number will be!

Posted by Erik Blackerby, ConsumerSpy.org on Tuesday, March 18th, 2008 at 11:46 pm.