Treasury prepares to send out rebates Sunday, May 27, 2001

(05-27) 22:23 PDT WASHINGTON (AP) --

The Treasury Department is gearing up to send out tax-cut rebate checks of up to $600, readying a customized computer program that will sort through Internal Revenue Service records.

The $1.35 trillion, 10-year tax cut that Congress approved Saturday and Bush intends to sign during the first week of June is retroactive to the beginning of the year, and the rebates are to adjust for overpayment.

They reflect the first year of a new 10 percent income tax rate on the initial $6,000 of an individual's income, $12,000 for married couples.

Married couples will get checks of up to $600, single parents will receive as much as $500 and single taxpayers will get a maximum of $300, depending on tax liability.

The Treasury Department quietly began preparing for a burst of check-writing activity as soon as the White House and lawmakers began discussing a quick rebate as a way to stimulate the economy. Still, officials said it will take up to four months to complete the process.

"It will be a quick process, but it won't be immediate," Mike Siegel, spokesman for Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said Sunday.

That will require the government to swiftly identify about 95 million eligible taxpayers, determine the size of their rebates, print the checks and send them.

New software will help Treasury perform the calculations, and the printing machines that write government and military paychecks and Social Security checks will be employed in their "off time" to write the rebates, said department spokeswoman Michele Davis.

Taxpayers will receive checks that look like standard tax-refund checks, Davis said. She and Siegel said most taxpayers should get their rebates by the end of September, although Siegel said a small number may not go out until the end of the year.

-- Anonymous, May 28, 2001