Wise Startup Blog

For those of us looking to get the most out of the stimulus bill, we’ve put together the best of the stimulus plan and how you can cash in on the savings available to everyone.

Best Stimulus Breaks For Consumers

$8,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers allows any first time home purchaser an $8,000 tax credit (down from the proposed $15,000 credit) for purchasing their first home. What does this mean, exactly? This $8,000 is basically a coupon to not have to pay your taxes for $8,000 worth. So come tax season, if you owe taxes of $8,000 or more, you won’t have to pay any taxes up to the amount of $8,000 or if it’s less, you can rollover the tax credit for future years.

It’s basically an $8,000 reduction in the price of a home, which makes this a great deal.

New-car buyers can deduct the entire sales tax for the purchase of a new-car. Say you buy a $20,000 car, pay 6% sales tax, and you get $1,200 as a tax deduction, which is not quite as good as the tax credit, but a nice plus. Couple this with the huge drop in car prices, and this is a great time to buy a new vehicle.

$400 tax refund for individuals and $800 for couples filing jointly for those of us that make less than $100,000 per year. This is basically akin to the $600 stimulus package Bush gave us last year, and this will be great to put money back into our pockets.

These are really the best stimulus options for consumers, and hopefully will do something to stimulate the economy on the consumer side, but the majority of the stimulus package is geared towards getting people back to work and investing in the infrastructure of the country.