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On March 31 2020 02:36 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On March 31 2020 01:59 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 31 2020 01:53 LegalLord wrote:On March 31 2020 01:01 Wombat_NI wrote:On March 31 2020 00:55 LegalLord wrote:On March 30 2020 23:54 Simberto wrote:
And now in this crisis, they once again demand to be paid in full for their hard work of owning things, while i can't even work to gain that money. Why can they not be the people who take the hit for once? Why is it always the bottom rank of the ladder who has to shoulder all of the hardship, while the top always comes first when it comes to collecting money, and last when it comes to paying their fair share? If your problem is with "the wealthy" not doing their fair share, then your ire should hardly be concentrated on small-time landlords. Unless they own enough property such that the net worth of all of their real estate is in the many millions (say, >$21MM), they hardly qualify as wealthy. Most small-time landlords would be able to comfortably afford paying rent on the property that is difficult for you to pay, but still only make like 50-100% more money than you do in your job. Yes, you'll make some pretty solid profit if you keep the business running for 30 years, do a good job of it, and have your property in a desirable area, but that's hardly an unfair outcome in my eyes. Precluding of course that the landlord doesn’t have some other paying gig too. I usually assume that they do. In practice, you need your properties to be worth at least several millions of dollars to be able to live comfortably off of the rents they bring in; owning just a few is a supplement to income at best. How much does it take to "live comfortably" in that estimation, just curious? To try to have at least some cost of living adjustment - let’s say, somewhere around 4-5x the poverty line for your given city.
What are some full-time jobs (as opposed to collecting money for owning valuable land) that you don't think deserve to be compensated for their labor enough to live comfortably by that 4-5x poverty line metric? Or do you think everyone that works full time should at minimum make enough money to live comfortably by your metric?
Put another way, do people think those that currently have to work through this pandemic (like poor people that deliver food) don't deserve to have a minimum level of compensation that equates the level of comfort expected for people that literally do nothing but own something for that same compensation?
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On March 31 2020 03:02 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On March 31 2020 02:36 LegalLord wrote:On March 31 2020 01:59 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 31 2020 01:53 LegalLord wrote:On March 31 2020 01:01 Wombat_NI wrote:On March 31 2020 00:55 LegalLord wrote:On March 30 2020 23:54 Simberto wrote:
And now in this crisis, they once again demand to be paid in full for their hard work of owning things, while i can't even work to gain that money. Why can they not be the people who take the hit for once? Why is it always the bottom rank of the ladder who has to shoulder all of the hardship, while the top always comes first when it comes to collecting money, and last when it comes to paying their fair share? If your problem is with "the wealthy" not doing their fair share, then your ire should hardly be concentrated on small-time landlords. Unless they own enough property such that the net worth of all of their real estate is in the many millions (say, >$21MM), they hardly qualify as wealthy. Most small-time landlords would be able to comfortably afford paying rent on the property that is difficult for you to pay, but still only make like 50-100% more money than you do in your job. Yes, you'll make some pretty solid profit if you keep the business running for 30 years, do a good job of it, and have your property in a desirable area, but that's hardly an unfair outcome in my eyes. Precluding of course that the landlord doesn’t have some other paying gig too. I usually assume that they do. In practice, you need your properties to be worth at least several millions of dollars to be able to live comfortably off of the rents they bring in; owning just a few is a supplement to income at best. How much does it take to "live comfortably" in that estimation, just curious? To try to have at least some cost of living adjustment - let’s say, somewhere around 4-5x the poverty line for your given city. What are some full-time jobs (as opposed to collecting money for owning valuable land) that you don't think deserve to be compensated for their labor enough to live comfortably by that 4-5x poverty line metric? Or do you think everyone that works full time should at minimum make enough money to live comfortably by your metric? Put another way, do people think those that currently have to work through this pandemic (like poor people that deliver food) don't deserve to have a minimum level of compensation that equates the level of comfort expected for people that literally do nothing but own something for that same compensation?
Wouldn't the issue be more that people who have essential works don't get paid enough ? It could be solved by taxing the 0.1% harder without having to go after common people who have a ton of mortgage to own those 3 houses.
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On March 31 2020 03:47 Erasme wrote:Show nested quote +On March 31 2020 03:02 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 31 2020 02:36 LegalLord wrote:On March 31 2020 01:59 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 31 2020 01:53 LegalLord wrote:On March 31 2020 01:01 Wombat_NI wrote:On March 31 2020 00:55 LegalLord wrote:On March 30 2020 23:54 Simberto wrote:
And now in this crisis, they once again demand to be paid in full for their hard work of owning things, while i can't even work to gain that money. Why can they not be the people who take the hit for once? Why is it always the bottom rank of the ladder who has to shoulder all of the hardship, while the top always comes first when it comes to collecting money, and last when it comes to paying their fair share? If your problem is with "the wealthy" not doing their fair share, then your ire should hardly be concentrated on small-time landlords. Unless they own enough property such that the net worth of all of their real estate is in the many millions (say, >$21MM), they hardly qualify as wealthy. Most small-time landlords would be able to comfortably afford paying rent on the property that is difficult for you to pay, but still only make like 50-100% more money than you do in your job. Yes, you'll make some pretty solid profit if you keep the business running for 30 years, do a good job of it, and have your property in a desirable area, but that's hardly an unfair outcome in my eyes. Precluding of course that the landlord doesn’t have some other paying gig too. I usually assume that they do. In practice, you need your properties to be worth at least several millions of dollars to be able to live comfortably off of the rents they bring in; owning just a few is a supplement to income at best. How much does it take to "live comfortably" in that estimation, just curious? To try to have at least some cost of living adjustment - let’s say, somewhere around 4-5x the poverty line for your given city. What are some full-time jobs (as opposed to collecting money for owning valuable land) that you don't think deserve to be compensated for their labor enough to live comfortably by that 4-5x poverty line metric? Or do you think everyone that works full time should at minimum make enough money to live comfortably by your metric? Put another way, do people think those that currently have to work through this pandemic (like poor people that deliver food) don't deserve to have a minimum level of compensation that equates the level of comfort expected for people that literally do nothing but own something for that same compensation? Wouldn't the issue be more that people who have essential works don't get paid enough ? It could be solved by taxing the 0.1% harder without having to go after common people who have a ton of mortgage to own those 3 houses.
The issue Simberto was pointing out is that isn't what happens. What happens is that the petty lords side with the big lords against the serfs every fucking time the crisis is over (or even during it). They allow themselves to be used as the temporarily embarrassed millionaires shielding and advocating the system that ensures the precarity the system requires to keep people showing up to work for poverty wages. They do so in hopes that maybe they'll at least be able to "live comfortably" under that system, and belief that those that can't have failed as a result of their own choices.
There's pick-me serfs too, willing to sell out their peers for just a shot at moving up to being a petty lord.
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On March 31 2020 00:43 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2020 09:45 ChristianS wrote:On March 30 2020 09:16 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 30 2020 08:59 ChristianS wrote:On March 30 2020 08:35 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 30 2020 08:28 ChristianS wrote:On March 30 2020 08:21 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 30 2020 08:07 ChristianS wrote:
So if your opinion is “fuck all landlords, everybody should just stop paying rent and landlords can figure it out,” I think your opinion sucks. I can understand why you feel that way but you also must see that this is literally something landlords can figure out themselves. I mean in your case you're not really a landlord imo as much as an agent of your landlord (the holder of your mortgage). The role you describe filling exists imo as a way to direct tenants anger at the rent-seeker they see rather than the rent seeker leeching off both of their (and other workers) labor and it gives the agent of the landlord a feeling of marginal social superiority over the tenants as well as practical control over others, vacillating them between petty nobility and freeman serf. How are you determining this distinction then? Most of the “landlords” you’re talking about probably have mortgages, so it’s a bank that really “owns” the property. If you’re calling for all mortgage payments to be cancelled, too, I can see a better argument for it; then it’s mostly the banks getting screwed. But if you’re just saying I’m not a “real landlord” so the policy wouldn’t apply to my situation (but would to the situation Emnjay is talking about), you’re gonna have to clarify how you’re making the distinction/what you’re actually advocating be done in such situations. You may have missed it (totally fair thread moves a lot) but I've expressed I support mortgage relief (not the government just paying banks off) on mortgages for houses where the person with the mortgage lives there. Your specific situation would fall under an "improving the land" category that would need to be handled slightly differently. But someone else paying the bill for the land you live on is what it is (if I understand your situation correctly). On March 30 2020 08:33 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:On March 30 2020 08:21 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 30 2020 08:07 ChristianS wrote:
So if your opinion is “fuck all landlords, everybody should just stop paying rent and landlords can figure it out,” I think your opinion sucks. I mean in your case you're not really a landlord imo as much as an agent of your landlord (the holder of your mortgage). and Emnjay808's mom isn't how exactly? This whole rant seems rather silly after this statement. I'm not saying she's not, but land hoarder lackey isn't common parlance here (and might be taken personally rather than as descriptive of the relationship as I see it) so I eased into it. Plus it wasn't completely clear how much of the property is mortgaged in her case based on what I read. She could have 3k worth of mortgages and 12k in rent income which would be significantly different than what ChristianS describes. So what do you do with people that improved the land? Again, I hate to make it personal, so let’s move to a simpler example. A guy bought an empty lot, bought materials, and spent a year building a house on it. Now he’s renting it to a family. What should happen? The family no longer owes rent, and he’s not allowed to evict them. Does he get... anything? Not even reimbursed for his costs, let alone for a year of his labor? If we agree that we shouldn't have land hoarders rent seeking and have to address it, is it fair to suggest the people in that hypothetical situation should be the first to offer up ideas on how they could/should be compensated under the agreed upon premise that we are reorganizing to rid ourselves of land hoarders? If not, I'd wonder why? Because if they don't even have an idea to disagree with, then simply sharing the common man's equitable society is balanced enough for me with consideration for advantages granted them by domestic and foreign policy with horrific consequences. I could come up with something that may or may not be satisfactory to you, but without your own proposal within the agreed premise of "no more land hoarders" (to be reductive), I don't see it as necessary. Now if you are making your recognition that we shouldn't have land hoarders conditional on how this hypothetical person is compensated given their specific circumstances, I think we gotta go back to justifying land hoarders as desirable to make the conditional rational. I admit I don’t have a good idea for the “right” way to reshape the financial system, and agree that as structured presently it’s deeply fucked. I also acknowledge that you’re basically being asked to design a reform that won’t unfairly rob anyone, even though their wealth was previously distributed by a system you consider unfair and immoral. That’s a big request, and probably impossible without retroactively going through everybody’s entire financial history and redistributing wealth based on how valuable their previous labor was to society. Without doing that, inevitably some people are going to either lose/gain unfairly, or be left with unfair gains/losses from the old system. If you want to say people like our hypothetical housebuilder (and maybe myself, too) are regrettable casualties of the transition to a better and fairer system, fair enough. Any systemic change will create winners and losers, and you do what you can to mitigate the worst of it but if the change is better for society overall at some point you have to just go ahead with it. But it’s worth talking about those winners and losers, and acknowledging when you think those outcomes were regrettable. As for ideas for reforming the system, I mentioned one the other day. I don’t think I support it myself, and Belisarius certainly didn’t like it, but I wonder what you’d think of it: a 100% tax on “unearned” increase in property value (that is, appreciation not due to land improvement). That way home ownership would be a way to have a place to live, but it wouldn’t be an investment. There’s a lot of negative side effects that I think probably outweigh the benefits, but it does negate the profitability of land hoarding, no? such people are casualties of the current system. this is a great deleveraging event. the reason i have little sympathy for the “small time landlords” that will go bust is because they treat leveraged returns in boom times as their right. oh you wanted to become a real estate mogul and own a bunch of properties? you leveraged yourself multiple times and took out 4 or 5 mortgages? welcome to capitalism. i feel some sympathy for the san diego resident trying to buy a home by renting it out. but is it that different from all the retirees who just lost 30% of their investment portfolio? if you play the game you might lose. the perverse thing is that if you dont play the game you usually lose by default. people who leverage themselves take advantage of rules and regulations during the boom times. complaining about tenants who avail themselves of pandemic policies is just the obverse of people in boom times complaining they cant get a bank loan. dont worry though, on a long enough time horizon capital lifts all boats.
A lot of this sounds a lot like some version of “you knew the risks and agreed to them, so you can’t really complain.” That makes more sense on the stock market than it does in home ownership. Somebody with a significant portion of their portfolio in stocks (especially if they’re retired or close to retiring!) knew or should have known that was a high-risk, high-reward strategy. But home ownership is supposed to be low risk with low-to-moderate returns.
Admittedly buying a house and renting it out is riskier. Anybody doing that should know that repair costs, a couple months of vacancies in between tenants, or drops in the rental value are risks they’re taking. So far this year I had 1.5 months w/o rent as old tenants moved out and we found new ones, and a couple thousand to repair the heating and A/C system. That’s okay, I know that’ll happen and I try not to count on more than 10 months rent per year. When possible I keep some savings in case of some expensive roof repair or something.
But if the government were to announce “no more rent payments for 6 months, tough shit landlords” that’s not a risk I could have reasonably expected to anticipate. If I was expected to plan for something like that, I couldn’t have afforded the place at all, the house would still be a dilapidated wreck with no one living in it, and I’d be taking up one of the already-scarce apartments enjoying the free rent.
If I’m understanding GH’s prescriptions correctly, the highly leveraged people would actually be just fine. Rent payments are cancelled, but they’ll get mortgage assistance. It’s the guy who bought a lot with his own money and built a house with his own hands, then rented it out, that will really be screwed. If he’d sold the house to some unscrupulous property management company, he’d be fine; he would have gotten to a chair before the music stopped.
Again, any big transition creates unfair winners and losers; you can try to mitigate that, but if the change is good overall, you should go ahead with it and accept a few unjust outcomes. But I don’t think these specific outcomes are just, and I don’t think “they knew the risks, if you play the game sometimes you lose” is a good way to handwave that away.
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A landlord that owns his own properties free and clear has the full value of the properties to use as a means of mitigating harms related to held back rent payments, so I dunno how that kind of landlord is especially screwed by a broad rent strike. Interest rates on real property equity lines of credit are pretty good right now as well, far better than those available to renters seeking unsecured loans.
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On March 31 2020 04:18 farvacola wrote:
A landlord that owns his own properties free and clear has the full value of the properties to use as a means of mitigating harms related to held back rent payments, so I dunno how that kind of landlord is especially screwed by a broad rent strike. Interest rates on real property equity lines of credit are pretty good right now as well, far better than those available to renters seeking unsecured loans.
Sorry, to clarify: my understanding was GH thinks these changes should be permanent, i.e. landlords no longer own that property. But I might be mistaken! In that scenario, though, there might not be a lot of time left to borrow against the value of the home you “own” if the system is about to stop recognizing that ownership.
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I was speaking more in support of igne’s description of the risks and rewards of the status quo. The risks inherent to a sudden shift in how we fundamentally conceive of the landlord/renter dynamic are not something I’d hold against anyone, save for maybe the folks at the very top.
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On March 31 2020 04:28 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On March 31 2020 04:18 farvacola wrote:
A landlord that owns his own properties free and clear has the full value of the properties to use as a means of mitigating harms related to held back rent payments, so I dunno how that kind of landlord is especially screwed by a broad rent strike. Interest rates on real property equity lines of credit are pretty good right now as well, far better than those available to renters seeking unsecured loans. Sorry, to clarify: my understanding was GH thinks these changes should be permanent, i.e. landlords no longer own that property. But I might be mistaken! In that scenario, though, there might not be a lot of time left to borrow against the value of the home you “own” if the system is about to stop recognizing that ownership.
I mean leveraging heavily against modest land holdings would go a long way put towards ending the exploitation of agents and tenants by the real land hoarders. Nothing I say should be considered financial advice though of course.
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There's a point here that I think highlights the problem
On March 31 2020 04:08 ChristianS wrote:
A lot of this sounds a lot like some version of “you knew the risks and agreed to them, so you can’t really complain.” That makes more sense on the stock market than it does in home ownership. Somebody with a significant portion of their portfolio in stocks (especially if they’re retired or close to retiring!) knew or should have known that was a high-risk, high-reward strategy. But home ownership is supposed to be low risk with low-to-moderate returns.
This part simply isn't true anymore, and hasn't been for years. Everyone has been able to convince themselves that owning property is low risk with high returns, because in capital cities all across the world, prices have skyrocketed but "safe as houses" is still a foundational tenet.
To me, one of the major drivers is the power of these mom-and-pop investors as a voting bloc, both nationally, in constantly voting to shore up the environment and/or tax breaks that guarantee their unsustainable returns; and locally via NIMBYism, constantly obstructing the development of higher density housing and thus manufacturing a scarcity that drives up their investments.
This is really just a more personal version of too-big-to-fail, with profits privatised but losses socialised. An investment property is an investment. There is nothing special about a physical building that justifies it being any more protected than any other investment.
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On March 31 2020 07:23 Belisarius wrote:There's a point here that I think highlights the problem Show nested quote +On March 31 2020 04:08 ChristianS wrote:
A lot of this sounds a lot like some version of “you knew the risks and agreed to them, so you can’t really complain.” That makes more sense on the stock market than it does in home ownership. Somebody with a significant portion of their portfolio in stocks (especially if they’re retired or close to retiring!) knew or should have known that was a high-risk, high-reward strategy. But home ownership is supposed to be low risk with low-to-moderate returns. This part simply isn't true anymore, and hasn't been for years. Everyone has been able to convince themselves that owning houses is low risk with high returns, because in capital cities all across the world, prices have skyrocketed but "safe as houses" is still a foundational tenet. This is a core issue. To me, one of the major drivers is the power of these mom-and-pop investors as a voting bloc, both nationally, in constantly voting to shore up the environment and/or tax breaks that guarantee their unsustainable returns; and locally via NIMBYism, constantly obstructing the development of higher density housing and maintaining the scarcity that drives up their investments. This is really just a more personal version of too-big-to-fail, where profits are privatised but losses are socialised. An investment property is an investment. There is nothing special about a physical building that justifies it being any more protected than any other investment.
Couldn't agree more, it wouldn't surprise me if the rise and success of REITs is involved in all of this.
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On March 31 2020 07:23 Belisarius wrote:There's a point here that I think highlights the problem Show nested quote +On March 31 2020 04:08 ChristianS wrote:
A lot of this sounds a lot like some version of “you knew the risks and agreed to them, so you can’t really complain.” That makes more sense on the stock market than it does in home ownership. Somebody with a significant portion of their portfolio in stocks (especially if they’re retired or close to retiring!) knew or should have known that was a high-risk, high-reward strategy. But home ownership is supposed to be low risk with low-to-moderate returns. This part simply isn't true anymore, and hasn't been for years. Everyone has been able to convince themselves that owning property is low risk with high returns, because in capital cities all across the world, prices have skyrocketed but "safe as houses" is still a foundational tenet. To me, one of the major drivers is the power of these mom-and-pop investors as a voting bloc, both nationally, in constantly voting to shore up the environment and/or tax breaks that guarantee their unsustainable returns; and locally via NIMBYism, constantly obstructing the development of higher density housing and thus manufacturing a scarcity that drives up their investments. This is really just a more personal version of too-big-to-fail, with profits privatised but losses socialised. An investment property is an investment. There is nothing special about a physical building that justifies it being any more protected than any other investment.
As I recall, you had a solution to all of this you proposed that was less odious than the 100% unearned appreciation tax, but financial system talk makes my mind go fuzzy so I didn’t understand it. But perhaps it’s worth reiterating for the present discussion?
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I don't do solutions, I just complain about other people's solutions.
I think the goal should be, as you said, low risk and lowish returns.Unfortunately, we are so far into a bubble that to go back to the historical average would trigger a collapse. On the other hand, simply drawing a line and proceeding with low returns from here just entrenches the generational wealth inequality that the bubble created.
The best case seems to be a managed decline over a couple of years followed by a long period of flat returns that slowly come back up to maybe 3%ish yoy. So how we do we engineer that?
I’m not super sure, but Australia’s last opposition looked on track until they ran into the brick wall that is the aforementioned voting bloc. Their platform might be a place to start:
- a crackdown on a bunch of tax breaks that housing investors get here
- general increases to CGT (I wasn’t super convinced on this)
- incentives to invest in new rather than existing housing
- a commitment to build a bunch of affordable housing
This isn’t much on paper, but the effect on sentiment was immediate. House prices stalled and started to fall well before the election, because polls suggested Labor would win, and this alone was enough to unwind a lot of the speculation. After they lost unexpectedly, this speculation has of course redoubled.
We could and probably should go much further, but I think anything that happens should be in the context of higher-level changes as well. A scaling wealth tax at high networths, very large inheritance taxes and a very aggressive ETS should be on the cards no matter what. Those would attack a lot of the incentives at the root.
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The other issue I’m not sure about is how rental value factors into it. In a sense, it’s hard to accuse the unscrupulous slumlord of profiting off a bubble: the money-making value of his property isn’t speculative, he really can squeeze out that much rent and skimp that much on repair costs. So even if we did force his property value down, does that necessarily mean he’ll have to lower rents? His tenants probably can’t afford to buy a place anyway.
Maybe it’s just my lack of comprehension of the financial system, but is there any particularly strong reason to expect rental value to track sale value in this way?
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The money making value of residential real estate is not very speculative to the immediate collector of rents/mortgage payments/property taxes, but it is to those who invest in the collection of those monies. That's where difficult to control investment-based manipulations occur (many of which are unintentional, it should be said), and is why appropriate solutions mostly look past the basic decision making of those who partake in small scale use of real estate for profit. That's not to say that adjustments to some of the basic risk/reward numbers at the lower levels aren't called for, rather that they need to be accompanied by reforms that are larger in scope.
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If anyone is interested, Mankiw linked some papers on his blog that he thinks shed some special insight to how economists are thinking about the pandemic, and what the long and short term macroeconomic effects are likely to be.
In case anyone hasn't said it yet, the stimulus passed and if you made <$75000 in 2019, you should be getting a $1200 check within the next 3-4 weeks. If you got your tax refund already, and the IRS distributed it to you via direct deposit, then this $1200 will come to you through the same direct deposit information you've given the IRS.
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On March 31 2020 09:19 ArcadePlus wrote:If anyone is interested, Mankiw linked some papers on his blog that he thinks shed some special insight to how economists are thinking about the pandemic, and what the long and short term macroeconomic effects are likely to be. In case anyone hasn't said it yet, the stimulus passed and if you made <$75000 in 2019, you should be getting a $1200 check within the next 3-4 weeks. If you got your tax refund already, and the IRS distributed it to you via direct deposit, then this $1200 will come to you through the same direct deposit information you've given the IRS.
Are they using this years tax information as well? It would suck to be a student with no filed taxes for 2018, graduated and started working the year later (2019) if they're only looking at last year's filed returns to determine the 1200 / 600 payments.
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On March 31 2020 09:52 Wegandi wrote:Show nested quote +On March 31 2020 09:19 ArcadePlus wrote:If anyone is interested, Mankiw linked some papers on his blog that he thinks shed some special insight to how economists are thinking about the pandemic, and what the long and short term macroeconomic effects are likely to be. In case anyone hasn't said it yet, the stimulus passed and if you made <$75000 in 2019, you should be getting a $1200 check within the next 3-4 weeks. If you got your tax refund already, and the IRS distributed it to you via direct deposit, then this $1200 will come to you through the same direct deposit information you've given the IRS. Are they using this years tax information as well? It would suck to be a student with no filed taxes for 2018, graduated and started working the year later (2019) if they're only looking at last year's filed returns to determine the 1200 / 600 payments.
They're using 2018 if available, 2019 if not. There is an issue for people who got laid off in between though (as it uses 2018 income).
You can fill out a tax return now even if you made nothing and qualify, I believe. (Also, the amount decreases every 500$ above 75k income, stopping at 95k)
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On March 31 2020 10:18 Nevuk wrote:Show nested quote +On March 31 2020 09:52 Wegandi wrote:On March 31 2020 09:19 ArcadePlus wrote:If anyone is interested, Mankiw linked some papers on his blog that he thinks shed some special insight to how economists are thinking about the pandemic, and what the long and short term macroeconomic effects are likely to be. In case anyone hasn't said it yet, the stimulus passed and if you made <$75000 in 2019, you should be getting a $1200 check within the next 3-4 weeks. If you got your tax refund already, and the IRS distributed it to you via direct deposit, then this $1200 will come to you through the same direct deposit information you've given the IRS. Are they using this years tax information as well? It would suck to be a student with no filed taxes for 2018, graduated and started working the year later (2019) if they're only looking at last year's filed returns to determine the 1200 / 600 payments. They're using 2018 if available, 2019 if not. There is an issue for people who got laid off in between though (as it uses 2018 income). You can fill out a tax return now even if you made nothing and qualify, I believe. (Also, the amount decreases every 500$ above 75k income, stopping at 95k)
Hmmm? 2018 income, eh. So, if you worked 2019, but not 2018 you're only getting 600?
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On March 31 2020 10:30 Wegandi wrote:Show nested quote +On March 31 2020 10:18 Nevuk wrote:On March 31 2020 09:52 Wegandi wrote:On March 31 2020 09:19 ArcadePlus wrote:If anyone is interested, Mankiw linked some papers on his blog that he thinks shed some special insight to how economists are thinking about the pandemic, and what the long and short term macroeconomic effects are likely to be. In case anyone hasn't said it yet, the stimulus passed and if you made <$75000 in 2019, you should be getting a $1200 check within the next 3-4 weeks. If you got your tax refund already, and the IRS distributed it to you via direct deposit, then this $1200 will come to you through the same direct deposit information you've given the IRS. Are they using this years tax information as well? It would suck to be a student with no filed taxes for 2018, graduated and started working the year later (2019) if they're only looking at last year's filed returns to determine the 1200 / 600 payments. They're using 2018 if available, 2019 if not. There is an issue for people who got laid off in between though (as it uses 2018 income). You can fill out a tax return now even if you made nothing and qualify, I believe. (Also, the amount decreases every 500$ above 75k income, stopping at 95k) Hmmm? 2018 income, eh. So, if you worked 2019, but not 2018 you're only getting 600?
No, only one is ever considered, and 2019 is only looked at if 2018 isn't available. So in that scenario still 1200 if income less than 75k (or 150 joint) in 2018, regardless of 2019 income either way
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EPT
