Rebate paper checks will be mailed to those who did not opt for an electronic transfer, beginning on May 9. The IRS will issue payments of up to 600 dollars (1,200 dollars for married couples), plus 300 for eligible children younger than 17.

The rebates are available to individuals who have income of less than 75,000 dollars a year, or 150,000 dollars for a couple. People who have no requirement to file a tax form must have at least 3,000 in qualifying income, such as earned income and pension benefits, and file the form to receive a rebate.

Rebate checks will continue to be mailed through mid-July. For those who did not file by the April 15 deadline, there may be a delay in receiving the rebates, the IRS said.

The stimulus plan is expected to cost 152 billion dollars this year.

Who is eligible?

More than 130 million taxpayers will receive a rebate. To qualify, you must have at least $3,000 in income to receive the minimum rebate of $300 for an individual or $600 for a couple filing jointly.

Income for this purpose includes wages, railroad retirement benefits and certain disability and survivor benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs. It also includes Social Security retirement, survivor and disability benefits but not Supplemental Security Income or investment income.

The maximum rebate is $600 for an individual and $1,200 for a married couple filing jointly.

Parents eligible for a rebate will receive $300 for each qualifying child. The child must be under age 17 as of the end of last year and live with you for more than half the year.

Rebates begin to be reduced once adjusted gross income tops $75,000 for an individual and $150,000 for a couple. Your rebate is reduced by 5 cents for every $1 you make over those thresholds.

Tax return

You must file a 2007 tax return. The IRS will use this to determine eligibility and calculate the size of the rebate.

If you have filed your return, don't worry. You don't have to file again to get the rebate, as some fear, Stiff said.

About 20 million people aren't required to file a return because they earn too little. They still must file to obtain the rebate.

The IRS is encouraging veterans and Social Security beneficiaries who usually don't file returns to file a 1040A form and write on the top "Stimulus Payment."

If you need help filing a return, the IRS, AARP and community groups will be offering free assistance.

Low- to moderate-income households can receive free help at one of the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance programs. To find the nearest location to you, call 800-906-9887. To find an AARP Tax-Aide site, call 888-227-7669.

Despite the outreach, many people might never learn about the rebate and not file a return, said William Massey, a senior tax analyst with Thomson Tax & Accounting.

Massey says he has called his aunts—ages 78 and 93—to let them know that he will prepare returns for them.

If you do discover too late that you should have filed a 2007 return to obtain the rebate, you can always do so next year and receive the money, Stiff said.

When does the money arrive?

A rebate won't be lumped together with your regular tax refund. You'll receive a separate payment.

Rebates likely will be disbursed based upon Social Security numbers or geographic area, Stiff said.

The earliest rebates will be received in the first week of May by those who used direct deposit when filing their 2007 returns. Even if you're not due a refund for 2007, you can make sure the rebate is directly deposited into your account by filling out the bank routing information on your return.

Those who don't use direct deposit will start receiving paper checks the second week of May.

The IRS plans to set up a system where you can check online to find out when you'll receive your rebate, similar to how you can now track your refund online.

If you moved since filing your 2007 tax return, make sure you send the IRS a change-of-address form so you receive your rebate, Massey said.

Who won't get a rebate?

You won't receive money if you can be claimed as a dependent on someone else's tax return.

Casinos will be required to report winnings of $5,000 or more to the Internal Revenue Service, and will hand gamblers a tax form to record the payout.

It's actually a compromise from an original IRS proposal that would have made casinos withhold 25 percent of tournament winnings for tax purposes.

“There was such an outrage and outcry from the community, to suck all that money out” that the government changed its mind, Marissa Chien, a gambling tax expert in Las Vegas, told The Press of Atlantic City for Monday's newspapers.

“It allows the IRS to keep track of poker players, because poker is real big now,” said Chien, who is co-author of the book “Tax Help For Gamblers.”

Kevin Lillo, a shift manager at the Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort, said the new rule will be little more than “a slight inconvenience.”

“It's always been the law” to report winnings, he said. “All they're doing is making the casino enforce it. They're seeing money that's falling through the cracks.”

Bruce Kramer of Voorhees has never won $5,000 in a single tournament, but he could see how it would be a problem for serious players.

Gamblers across the country are already required to report all their winnings, whether it's from tournaments, slot machines or table games.

“If you're already reporting your income and being truthful and honest, this shouldn't affect you one bit,” Chien said. “But for those who try to stay off the radar, this is going to make it that much harder.”

American International Group Inc., the largest insurer in the U.S., lost more than $5 billion in the fourth quarter as bad credit ate into its investments, the company said Thursday.

AIG has been thrust to the forefront of the credit crisis gripping financial markets by contracts known as credit default swaps.

These swaps pledge to cover missed payments on $579 billion in debt. AIG's swap portfolio lost $11.12 billion in value during the fourth quarter because decaying credit quality means the insured debt is less likely to be repaid.

AIG also lost more than $3 billion in its investment portfolio because of "significant, rapid declines" in the value of mortgage debt.

AIG lost $5.29 billion, or $2.08 per share, in the fourth quarter, compared with profit of $3.44 billion, or $1.31 per share, in the fourth quarter of 2006.

For all of 2007, AIG earned $6.2 billion, or $2.39 per share, compared with $14.05 billion, or $5.36 per share, in 2006.

"AIG's results in 2007 were clearly unsatisfactory," AIG's chief executive, Martin J. Sullivan, said in a statement. "This was a challenging year in which the deterioration of both the U.S. residential mortgage and credit markets significantly affected several of our operations and investments."

Donn Vickrey, an analyst with Gradient Analytics, said AIG's management is under pressure to demonstrate it grasps the risks the company has taken.

The deterioration in the value of the swaps is more than double an estimate the company made just two weeks ago. At the end of the third quarter, AIG thought the portfolio of swaps had lost $352 million in value.

"They definitely seem to be right in the cross-hairs," Vickrey said. "They're insuring a lot of the risks that are rapidly becoming problematic."

AIG claims the losses on the portfolio swaps are only on paper because the debt the swaps protect is still stellar — just the market value of the contracts has fallen. As long as the insured debt does not go into default, the losses on the swaps will reverse over time, the company said.

The company's general insurance division posted a 22 percent decline in income to $2.02 billion. The division's mortgage insurance business, United Guaranty, posted a steep loss because flagging home prices have squashed the incentive and means for borrowers to repay home loans.

The life insurance division posted a 51 percent drop in profit, to $1.29 billion, because of bad investments.

The lawsuit against the agency was filed by Virginia Delegate Robert G. Marshall, who was joined by the National Taxpayers Union and Loudoun County. They say the NVTA has no legal right to levy the taxes that it started collecting Jan. 1. The $326 million a year in new taxes the NVTA seeks to raise would be imposed on motorists, property sellers and hotel guests.

Overall, the number of individual income-tax audits reached a 10-year high in 2007 – and the IRS plans to increase that number this year.

The push comes as the agency faces heavy pressure from Congress to raise additional revenue and shrink the nation's $290 billion "tax gap," the difference between what's collected and what should be collected.

IRS research indicates that much of the tax noncompliance is committed by self-employed workers, such as consultants and small-business owners, whose taxes aren't withheld from their pay and whose income isn't reported separately.

This year, "we will continue to focus on audits of high-income individuals," said Linda Stiff, the IRS's acting commissioner.

In addition, agents have increased audits of taxpayers involved in partnerships and businesses organized as "S corporations."

For the vast majority of taxpayers, the odds of getting audited remain low. Only about 1 percent of all individual returns filed in recent years have been audited. But the chances now are higher than just a few years ago.

The IRS relies on numerous techniques to choose which returns to audit. Many are selected using a secret computerized-scoring system that the IRS recently updated, which is based on a continuing research project involving in-depth audits of thousands of returns. Computer programs assign each tax return a score that evaluates the potential for inaccuracies, based on the IRS's experience with similar returns.

Others are picked because of "mismatches" – which means that something a taxpayer reported doesn't match what was reported separately to the IRS by employers or financial institutions.

Some returns get audited because they were done by a tax preparer the IRS suspects of wrongdoing.

Then there are those that get selected because of a tip from confidential informants, such as a former business partner or ex-spouse.

The overall impact of the payout – placing some $100 billion mostly in the hands of middle- and lower-income taxpayers – should modestly boost the nation's economy in the second half of the year, economists agree. But it may only soften the blow of any recession, making it "shallower" than it might be without this spending.

The president sought this quick relief as "a shot in the arm" for an economy which the White House maintains is going through a "rough patch." The White House, while acknowledging that the growth of the economy is slowing, does not concede that a recession is coming – though the Bush administration is projecting near-record federal budget deficits this year and next, with the tax rebates adding to that deficit.

"Money will be going directly to American workers, family and individuals," Bush said earlier this week. "It's going to help deal with the uncertainties in this economy."

Congress quickly responded to the president's call for an initial package of $145-billion in tax relief for individuals and families as well as tax relief for businesses. With swift bipartisan approval, Congress gave the president a $168-billion measure that includes tax breaks aimed at encouraging business expansion and increases in the mortgage limits that federal lending agencies can support in the midst of a home-mortgage crisis.

"Many Americans are worried about their mortgages," Bush said today. "My administration is working to solve this problem."

The lion's share of the relief will come as tax rebates for eligible taxpayers, people earning at least $3,000 a year. The minimum payment will be $300 for an individual and $600 for a couple filing a joint tax return. Based on the amount of taxes that people pay, the rebate will be as much as $600 for an individual and $1,200 for a couple. In addition, rebates will add $300 for each child in a family eligible for tax credits.

The sliding scale is designed to offer the most money in checks to lower- and middle-income taxpayers, with the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reporting that a couple with two children with an income of $35,000 a year will see a tax rebate of $1,800 – the maximum for a couple with money added for the children.

And because that money will be going to people most likely to spend it, rather than save or invest it, economists agree that it should have its intended effect of pumping billions of dollars into an ailing economy.

"This puts money in the hands of people who will spend it," said Chad Stone, chief economist for the Center. "The more people are up against their credit card limits, the more likely they are to spend the rebates."

Combined with cuts which the Federal Reserve has made in interest rates this year, Stone says, the tax rebates should offer some modest help for the economy at a time when many are predicting a recession.

"On balance, it will provide some useful stimulus, on top of the stimulus that will come from the big rate cuts that the Fed had made," he said. "A lot of people will say it's too little to make a difference. Maybe, if that were the only thing going on that might be true. But it's not the only thing going on."

The Economic Stimulus Act of 2008, which Bush signed this afternoon in an East Room ceremony at the White House, could boost the nation's Gross Domestic Product by one-half to one-percent in the second half of the year, other economists say.

"Clearly it will have impact on the second half of this year," said Sung Won Sohn, an economist who teaches at California State University and served as chief economist for Wells Fargo Bank. "We think it could boost GDP at an annual rate of 1 percent during the second half of 2008. That is fairly significant.

"The rebate is structured in such a way that it aims at essentially low and moderate income folks," Sohn said. "They are suffering because of the high price of gasoline and the high price of food.