Sunday, April 04, 2010

Get Credit Card Relief Last Year? Now Your Tab Comes Due

I'm woondering whether the millions of people who unloaded bad debt in 2009 have any clue they're about to get socked come tax day. Probably not if they're Obama voters, since he's supposed to be paying mortgages and buying gas for them or something.
Roughly two million embattled Americans got credit-card relief last year -- getting banks to cut their huge card balances, thus allowing them to crawl out from under the giant debt bus and get on with their lives.

Well, surprise, here comes a second bus to run them down: that forgiven debt is considered income and Uncle Sam wants his share.

That's right, two million temporarily overjoyed people are going to have to pay income tax on the forgiven debt.

Which means, if someone got $10,000 in credit-card debt written off by their bank in 2009, they could owe $2,500 come April 15.
Maybe they'll just put it on the credit cards.

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