As the proposed package currently stands, stimulus rebate checks will not be treated like loans to be repaid, as they were in 2001.
After beating my head against various walls, trying to find specific details regarding the stimulus package rebate checks to be issued to large numbers of citizens, I finally found a congressional staffer willing to discuss his understanding of the proposed package. Mr. Neku Ofori, Legislative Director for Congressman Chaka Fattah (D-PA), asserted that the money received will not be treated as a loan or be deducted from 2008 tax returns (filed by April 2009).
The patient Mr. Ofori, who was careful to remind me that he was discussing that which was proposed and agreed upon by the Congress, also made me aware that any money received, be it by rebate check, by lottery ticket or by slot machine payout, must be reported as income and is subject to normal taxes. The rebate check though, he said, would likely not have to be repaid on a dollar-for-dollar basis. Thanks to Mr. Neku Ofori and to Mr. Charles Hayden of Congressman Chaka Fattah's office for caring enough to answer a questioning constituent.
It remains to be seen whether, in it's version, the Senate will alter the proposal badly or for the public good. We'll also have to wait for the nefarious conference committee to resolve the differences between the Senate and the House versions. It further remains to be seen whether the president, with his apparently ever-present signing statement will alter the (yet-to-be-enacted) legislation slightly, substantially or not at all. Given the past actions of the president and the conference committee process, I am not inspired with confidence. On the contrary, the past actions of each conspire to fill me with unease.