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Matthew Richardson and Nouriel Roubini have a good and concise view of all the problems with the Geithner bank bailout plan:

Let’s not have any illusions. The government bears the risk if and when the investors take a bath on the taxpayer-provided loans. If the economy gets worse, it could get very ugly, very quickly…
There is something a little worrying about circumventing the legislative process on such a huge investment…
No one knows what the loans or securities are worth. Competing investors will help solve this by promoting price discovery. But be careful what you wish for. We might not like the answers…
We have to anticipate the likelihood that some banks will resist selling their loans and securities…
We may then have to start asking, "Why keep insolvent banks afloat?" And having asked that, we will have to search for ways to manage the ensuing systemic risk.
Either way, once the plan is fully implemented, we will be entering a new phase of the financial crisis. The water is choppy. Let’s hope we are strong swimmers.

The amazing thing is that this laundry list of problems appears under the headline "Give credit to Timothy Geithner’s new toxic asset plan": Richardson and Roubini actually consider themselves supporters of the scheme. Essentially, they say, we have to bite the bullet: it might be unpleasant, but it’s necessary.

I’m beginning to detect something of a pattern here: there are no really full-throated supporters of this plan outside the Administration; there’s no one who thinks it likely that nothing will go wrong. Instead, there is a group of people who have reasonably concluded that this is the least-worst option, in light of political constraints: essentially, it’s better than nothing, which is the only realistic alternative given that Congress is in no mood to pass anything bailing out banks right now.

I am though worried about the banks’ participation in this scheme — especially the Big Four. In order for this to have a chance of succeeding, they all need to participate, but they can’t overtly or covertly cooperate. I hope that Treasury is hiring some serious auction-design and game theory experts right now, because there does seem to be a large number of ways in which this plan can be gamed, especially when the banks have shown no particular enthusiasm for participating.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling's upcoming April 22 Budget could see a radical new scheme introduced to put a bit of vroom into the stalling motor industry.

Based on a similar schemes already underway on the Continent, owners of older cars, typically those more than 10 years old, would be handed discounts when they upgrade to newer models. In Germany, for instance, buyers of new cars get a £2,100 contribution from the government when they trade-in an older car. The German car dealers' body ZdK claims the payout has helped sell 200,000 cars.

TurboTax offers a marketing gimmick where they allow you to do your taxes on the online version of TurboTax for free.  You only have to pay when you print or e-file your return.  But, who says you have to print anything?

When you have finished inputting all of your information, and TurboTax has finished crunching all of the numbers, switch to the form view where you actually are looking at an electronic version of the tax form.  Copy the numbers down onto a Form 1040 that you printed off of the IRS website, and voila.  You taxes are done, and all for free!

Obviously, if you have to generate a bunch of extra paperwork or IRS Schedules, this isn’t the method for you.  But, keep in mind that many of the worksheets that TurboTax fills out with their program are not for filing, but rather just for the taxpayer to use and keep.  So, don’t let those throw you off.

If you are just filing a Form 1040 and a Schedule A (Itemized Deductions) then you are just fine.  Even a Schedule C (Business) is not a problem so long as you have a simple one-person operation that you run out of your home.

Anything much more complicated than this is probably a little too much to trust that you are going to get all of the right forms filled in and put together.  But, this trick should cover about 80% to 90% of the people who do their taxes without a professional.

Does Citigroup’s tone-deafness know no bounds? Last week it was the $10 million office renovation; this week, it’s retention bonuses paid, AIG-style, even to people who are leaving:

Mr. Klein, who headed Citigroup’s investment banking operations, was given a retention package in cash and stock worth $19.3 million. Even though he announced his departure a few months later, the board nonetheless paid him his full $5.5 million cash bonus in connection with that award. That was on top of nearly $28.8 million in two other cash payouts — one due on March 31, the other in October — for agreeing not to work for several Citigroup rivals.

Why do boards suddenly go all squishy when employees leave? They forgive loans; they throw in $5.5 million "retention bonuses"; they generally act as though the departing employee has them over a barrel. It’s very weird — and, in this case, it’s bound to come back to haunt them.

Think taxpayers are angry at Wall Street? People in the U.K. may be angrier.

Vandals attacked the Edinburgh home of Sir Fred Goodwin, who built the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) into the fifth-largest bank by market capitalization, only to watch it evaporate as the government was forced to bail it out.

So, you’re doing your taxes and everything is just fine.  You are approaching the end of your Form 1040, when you get blindsided by a question you’ve never seen before.

Line 70 of the 1040 says “Recovery rebate credit (see worksheet on pages 62 and 63)”

Yikes!  What is that about?

Look around and chances are you’ll get almost exactly the information you need, but with all of the if, ands, or buts that are crowding around the explaination, it can be tough to know if you are getting it right.

So, here is the quick and easy version.

Enter 0 or leave it blank.

That’s it.  Nice and easy.

Wait, too easy?  You are probably right.

For almost everyone, this line should be blank.  The only exception is if you DID NOT get your stimulus payment last year for some reason, OR if you got a reduced stimulus payment.  If you don’t remember complaining about getting a reduced stimulus payment, then you almost certainly did not get a reduced payment.  You would remember, trust me.

If you want to double check, go back and check your bank statements.  The payment was $300 for single filers, $600 for joint filers, and $300 per child.  If you have 2 kids and see a deposit in May for $1200, then you got your full payment and line 70 should be blank.

The stimulus payment was not a credit or advance on your 2008 taxes, so you are not paying it back with this line.  In fact, this line is a subtracting line which means that entering somethign here increases your refund.  So by entering a number here you are not paying back a stimulus advance, you are claiming another one!

Short version.  Line 70? Leave it blank.

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