They don't owe any taxes, but about 20-million people just got a great incentive to file a tax return: It's the only way to get a share of the billions of dollars the government is passing out to stimulate the economy.

Retirees living on Social Security will be eligible for the minimum rebate of $300 for singles and $600 for married couples filing jointly. The only income needed to qualify is at least $3,000 from any combination of these sources: earned income from work, Social Security benefits, Veterans Affairs disability benefits and Railroad Retirement benefits. Other requirements include having a Social Security number and not being claimed as a dependent on someone else's tax return.

Columbus sees cash in nonprofit hospitals

COLUMBUS At first glance, two big news items � a projected billion-dollar state budget deficit and Attorney General Marc Dann's probe into the finances of Ohio's nonprofit hospitals � may seem only distantly related. But look again. There's a reason Dann, fellow state attorneys general, congressional Republicans and the Internal Revenue Service are all pushing nonprofit hospitals for more thorough financial reporting: Hospitals represent the largest piece of a nonprofit sector that has been succeeding as other, taxpaying industries fail. According to the National Council of Nonprofit Associations, the number of charitable nonprofits filing with the IRS jumped 68 percent between 1993 and 2003, to 837,027. No taxes Such businesses are not required to pay the taxes other businesses pay because they are deemed to provide charitable benefit to their communities.

ChoicePoint Spent $1.4M on Lobbying

ChoicePoint Inc. spent nearly $1.4 million to lobby Congress and a number of government agencies last year, according to a disclosure form posted online Tuesday by the Senate's public records office.

The Alpharetta, Ga.-based data aggregation company spent about $1 million in the first half of 2007 and about $360,000 in the second half.

In the first half, the company spent $500,000 itself lobbying the Department of Justice over grants.

The remainder of the money was paid to lobbying firms Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, Capitol Hill Consulting Group, National Group, Ashcroft Group and Wexler & Walker Public Policy Group.

The firms lobbied the House of Representatives, the Senate and a litany of government departments, on issues ranging from background check legislation to data security to the Internal Revenue Service over electronic submission of tax forms.

LIU: Defect puts students at risk of ID theft

Long Island University has sent letters to 25,000 to 30,000 students informing them that tax forms mailed to them last week in "defective mailers" might have led to identity theft, and recommended that students put fraud alerts on their credit files.

The mailers containing each student's annual 1098-T "Tuition Statement" were supposed to have adhesive on all four sides. But one side of each envelope was missing adhesive, according to LIU officials, which caused about half of the statements to be damaged by U.S. Postal Service processing machinery.

A 1098-T tuition statement, which has to be sent to every student who paid tuition in the 2007 calendar year and postmarked by Jan. 31, contains the student's name, address and Social Security number.