A Test of the Honor System

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We'll give credit where credit is due. Bankrate lays out, with style and clarity, the looming scam of ducked homebuyer tax credit repayment.

Turns out that the rules for the first "please buy a house" giveaway were so confusing that even the IRS messed up. About 4.1% of the estimated 1.77 million buyers who claimed the credit have technical mix-ups about the precise date of the purchases. If they don't man up and pay what they're supposed to, just because, well, they're now responsible homeowners and all, chances are the IRS won't catch them.

We suppose that if the IRS can't figure out in advance who owes what, chances are that we'll get a straight answer later as to how many of that 4.1% did the right thing and repaid the credit, thereby doing on a citizen level what the big financial institutions did. Let's hope that the good neighbor urge kicks in and they own up. Unless, of course, they end up using their little windfalls to cover their rising property taxes.