The First Time Home Buyers Stimulus Is An Opportunity Not To Be Missed
Are you one of the many people who have been saving for years on end to buy your first home? Have your dreams of becoming one of the happy first time home buyers been dashed because of the recent economic crisis? Don’t give up hope just yet. President Barack Obama has made efforts in order to make your dream of being a first time homeowner possible through the home stimulus package tax credit.
To be eligible for the many benefits of the tax credit, you must not have owned a house in the 3 years previous to now and must make the purchase of your new home prior to November 30 2009. There is also a further stipulation to ensure that only those people who really need it can take advantage of the package. In order to benefit from the incentives being provided, you must be earning less than $95,000 a year if you are single, or less than $170,000 a year if you are married.
Unlike previous tax credits, this tax incentive is not a loan that you will have to pay for in a couple of years or so. This is a dole out from the government through tax incentives. The amount of money that you will receive is worked out like this – $8000 minus how much you pay for income tax in a year. Thus, if you have to pay 500 dollars worth of income tax, you will be receiving 7,500 dollars from the government.
Also, keep in mind that you can only get 10% of the total amount you spend purchasing your house as a tax incentive, with a maximum of 8,000 dollars. This means that you need to spend at least 80 thousand dollars on your home in order to qualify for the full tax credit of $8000. Otherwise, you will receive smaller amounts based on how much you paid for your home.
There are other ways in which you can save money on your new home. If you install energy saving appliances such as lights, air conditioning, heating systems, hot water heaters and so on-you can get incentives for the cost of these appliances as well. So, if you want to buy a new home and save the environment at the same time, then you should do so now in order to save yourself money.