The President will sign the huge stimulus bill over the weekend or on monday  feb 16.

My question is, how do I get the money?  

Every year, I get like 4-5 thousand dollars in refund, would I just get 12000-13000 dollars instead?

If so, do I get the $8000 in april 2909 or april 2010?

Thank you for your help

If you're a first-time buyer AFTER the bill is signed, then you get a tax CREDIT of $8,000 after you file your 2009 taxes, or I guess you could do estimated taxes and reduce your withholding. A credit just reduces the amount of tax you pay if you're eligible - meaning, make enough money to need another deduction.

BEFORE that most first-time buyers in 2009 are eligible for a $7,500 repayable credit (zero interest loan), except in some places that already have a program, like Washington, DC. This was not popular because it has to be repaid later.

"First-time buyer" means haven't bought in the past 3 years.

Where did you get this info that first time home buyer definition is that if you did not buy in the last 3 years?

The verbiage in the news just say first time homebuyer.

Please provide more reference.

Thanks.

From Wikipedia:

 a tax credit is a recognition of partial payment already made towards taxes due.

Princeton:

a direct reduction in tax liability (not dependent on the taxpayer's tax bracket)

So in other words, pending further analysis of the exact verbiage, your are not liable for 8k of your taxes for the given year (2009 in this case) as long as you bought your home during the given time frame. So that would show on your 2009 taxes, filed in 2010 or whenever you filed them.

You could reduce your taxation amount (by adjusting your tax rate through your employer) over the next year to compensate for the difference if you felt confident you were eligible.

Couple of misconceptions:

- For the existing $7500 credit, and probably for the new $8000 one, "first time homebuyer" meant "hasn't OWNED a home in the last 3 years" not just haven't bought one in that time.  So if you bought in say 2000, and sold in 2007 or 2008 sometime, you are not a first time homebuyer for this purpose. 

- The existing $7500 credit has an income limit of $75000 for single or $150000 for married filing jointly, followed by a $20000 phase-out range (ie so if you make $85000 if single or $160000 if MFJ you can take only half the credit, and if you make $95000 if single or $170000 if MFJ you cannot take the credit at all.)  Most of the news reports have indicated that this provision stayed for the new one.

- The existing $7500 credit was fully refundable - if you paid $0 in taxes for 2008, you could get the full $7500 back as a check from the government.  There was a lot of debate about the new credit and whether it should be fully refundable when they were talking about a $15000 credit, but I believe that since the $8000 credit is just an expansion of the existing $7500 credit it should still be fully refundable.

- The existing $7500 credit required repayment, at $500 year over 15 years if you took the full credit.  It's not clear to me whether the new legislation has eliminated the repayment requirement for the old credit, but from what most news reports have said it is eliminating the repayment requirement for the new $8000 version.

Here is the IRS form to claim the existing $7500 credit for your 2008 taxes if eligible:

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f5405.pdf

Here are the IRS frequently asked questions for the existing $7500 credit:

http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=186831,00.html

It will probably be a month or two after the President signs the bill before similarly detailed information is available directly from the IRS for the new credit.

It's an $8000 tax credit that is refundable.  To qualify:

1. You have to be a first time homebuyer.  The IRS has a very specific definition of this.  Basically, you can't have owned a home in the previous 3 years.
2. You must purchase between Jan 1, 2009 and Nov. 1, 2009
3. Your income must be < $75K for individuals and < $150K for couples.

One other thing to note is that you might be able to claim it on your 2008 or 2009 return.  This is a bit ambiguous in the article I read (see below), but in previous versions of the proposed legislation, you could claim it in 2008.

Here's the best summary I found:

http://money.cnn.com/2009/02/13/real_estate/homebuyer_tax_credit_finalized/index.htm?postversion=2009021617

With the income restrictions, the impact of this provision will be very minor in the bay area.  It's too bad that Congress is more interested in redistribution of wealth and not in actually stimulating the economy.

By the way, if you always have a  $4-5k refund, then maybe you should reduce your withholding, unless for some reason you like giving out free loans. 

Lumpy: Very true ob both counts.

Too many people I have known call overpaying their taxes a 'mandatory savings account.' Ridiculous. You can make interest on that money.

Until Congress permanently passes AMT reform, a lot of people  in the 150k-200k range (ie MANY dual income couples in the Bay Area) are going to end up with big refunds if they take the conservative approach and withhold taxes based on the possibility of having to pay AMT and then Congress DOES pass another year-by-year patch.  (Note that the 2008 one passed only in September, practically without any fanfare, hidden in the TARP bill, and the 2007 one passed with only a few days to go in the year.

Given typical interest rates of 2-3% (ie $100-$150 on $5000 over the course of a year) and IRS penalty rates if you get it wrong, overwithholding based on the possibility of AMT seems like a pretty good bet to me.

As for "redistribution of wealth" vs. "real stimulus," many reasonable people differ, and this is not the place to get into political arguments just because plenty of us are disappointed that the changes were not in our favor.