Posted on 02/25/2017 4:52:28 PM PST by TaxPayer2000
When Christina Knaack received a $5,600 tax refund, she didn't head to the mall or book a trip to the Caribbean. The South Carolina-based single mom of two kids used it to pay her rent … for the entire year.
"Instead of buying my kids the latest Jordans or fancy electronics I paid my rent for the YEAR," Knaack writes on Facebook. "I'm a single mom and I do it all by myself on a minimum wage job. I know that a roof over my kids head is what's important."
Since Knaack uploaded the picture of her rent receipt on Feb. 22, the post has gone viral and racked up more than 320,000 Facebook "reactions."
"You see too many posts now saying, 'Oh I got my kid the latest Jordans.' Or, "Look, my 7-year-old has an iPhone 7,'" Knaack says on FOX Carolina. "People lose sight of what's important."
Now that Knaack's rent is covered, "I don't have to worry about my kids saying, 'Mommy, I need this,' and I can't get it because I'm still trying to debate if I can pay my light bill or if I can pay my rent," she tells FOX.
Plus, she now has an extra $450 a month (the cost of her rent), which she plans to spend on fun activities with her kids.
If you're one of the millions expecting a tax refund this year, consider using it to improve your financial situation, whether that means chipping away at your rent or mortgage like Knaack, funding your retirement accounts or investing in your career.
I thought it was Carter, he said Reagan, you say Nixon and Wikipedia says Ford. sigh
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Sigh all you want, I am correct.
I said, Nixon first proposed it (He did) and Ford signed it into law (He did). I never said that “Nixon did”
OK. You are correct.
I’m with you on that, how on earth would she be entitled to such a refund? Free money for her from people that actually have to pay taxes? In all my years working, andd between the wife and I we had some really good years, never ever did we get anywhere near that kind of refund.
HOW did she get $5600.00 back on a minimum wage job??? She most likely paid NO FEDERL income Taxes, but she got $5600.00 from OTHER taxpayers!! Something is terribly wrong.
OTOH, lots of folks would love to be in a position to have to pay at the end of the year. Took me a while to balance mine out but next year I should be getting less than $400 back - both retired and I'm using my military retirement as the balancer to get as close to zero as possible come tax time.
If she had no job and was purely drawing from the various welfare programs available, you would be paying her roughly 10 times that. Let that roll around in your gut for a spell.
“pre-pays their rent giving their landlord an interest free loan”
Not to mention if something happens to the home (fire, flood, etc.) she will need a place to live, and hope that the landlord is smart enough to have the money on hand, and ethical enough to refund her, ASAP. At minimum, she should have put it in a bank account, to draw on, monthly. Other Freepers have pointed out even better uses of the funds.
I do give her credit for not blowing it, however.
“The earned income tax credit (EITC), first proposed in the early 1970s, was signed by President Ford. It was later substantially expanded by President Reagan, who deemed it “the best anti-poverty, the best pro-family, the best job creation measure to come out of Congress” (Snyder 1995). However, in recent years, the EITC has often come under political attack. It is criticized (sometimes implicitly but often explicitly) because it eliminates the income tax liability of many low-income workers, thus, it is claimed, giving them no “skin in the game” in support of the common good.1 Others criticize it for redistributing income to “people who have never paid a dime in their lives” but nevertheless “get a check from the government” (Sandmeyer 2013).”
Um, OK, Nixon.
One inherent problem with the credit in that it incentivizes people to report self employment income that they did not actually have in order to claim refunds of EITC and ACTC credits larger than their self employment tax.
You are correct. My reply #108 to Gaffer.
I guess I should have said “proposed by Nixon.”
It’s just another form of welfare. I guarantee she didn’t pay the IRS an extra $5400.
And I read somewhere on the internet that it was Regan’s tax credit, but it looks like we’ve all talked out the right answer.
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