First-time buyers get tax credit in stimulus bill

Federal Housing Tax Credit for First-Time Hawaii Home Buyers

The bill provides an $8,000 income tax credit to people who buy homes between January and November and lets people write off, as a deduction, the sales taxes they pay on new cars, trucks and motorcycles they buy any month this year.
* $15,000 tax credit
* Available for all home buyers
* No repayment necessary
* Loan limits will be raised to $727,000 in high cost areas
* The tax credit will be raised to $8,000 with NO payback [a true credit]

Individuals who earn less than $75,000 annually will get a $400 credit to apply directly against their total income tax for 2009 and for 2010, and couples who earn less than $150,000 will get a tax credit of $800.

The bill provides tax breaks for people who send their children to college and install energy-efficient air conditioners in their homes.

The legislation also helps people who have lost their jobs, by letting them draw unemployment for more than a year. The current limit is 26 weeks and the bill extends benefits up to 59 weeks.

The bill provides a $2,500 tax credit for college tuition, books and computers. And it increases the maximum allowable Pell Grant for college students from low- and moderate-income families by $500 to $5,350.

The income tax credit has dropped by $100 and $200 respectively, so that it would now total $400 for individuals and $800 for couples (paid in 2009 and 2010), phasing out completely at $200,000 for couples filing jointly and $100,000 for single filers.

The bill also has over $50 billion in it for foreclosure mitigation, with Geithner’s Treasury plan signaling that the second half of TARP and TALF will be used to mitigate foreclosures through a government guarantee, drive down interest rates by buying another $200-300 billion of mortgage paper from the GSES’s thereby freeing them up to do the same with new mortgages, and Fannie has just agreed to lift the cap of 4 investment properties eligible for loans and raise it to 10.

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