Word: taxed
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Congress is mulling plans to extend the $8,000 first-time home buyers' tax credit to April 30 (which covers home purchases closed by June 30) and to allow individuals with incomes of up to $125,000 (or $250,000 for couples) to apply for the credit, up from the previous threshold of $75,000. Also, a proposal is on the table to offer a new credit - $6,500 - to move-up buyers who have lived in their home for at least five years. The Senate is near a vote on its version, which includes an extension and expansion...
...analysts wonder if the $11 billion price tag for the credit's next phase is worth it. Some say many of the people using the tax credit would have purchased a home anyway...
...know how much of the success you would attribute to the [tax-credit] program and how much of it would have happened anyway because [home] prices went down significantly and interest rates went down at the same time, so the affordability became much better even without the program," says Bill Norwalk, a tax partner with Ireland San Filippo...
...think they greatly overestimate the beneficial impact of it," concurs Michael Widner, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus & Co. "I think that the people who were going to buy have already been lured in by the tax credit. As we extend it each additional month, you'll get a smaller and smaller effect." Also, while some experts applaud the idea of extending the credit beyond first-time buyers, they wonder if the $6,500 credit is large enough to make a serious dent. "The move-up buyer is buying a more expensive product and yet the amount of money being offered...
...tax credit has also been a fraudster's dream. A recent report from the Treasury Department's inspector general identified 167 suspected cases of fraud and was looking into more than 100,000 potential civil violations related to the tax credit. In one case, a 4-year-old child was able to claim the credit. (See the top 10 tax dodgers...