Millions of people are still waiting for their federal tax rebates.

So we likely won’t know the true effects of the billion-dollar program until next year. Although some local businesses have seen slight improvements on their bottom line, others haven’t felt a bump as the stimulus payments filtered through the community.

Suzette Smejkal owns Hammer Boutique in La Grange, a store that sells furniture, clothes and home decor. She said her sales improved by 30 percent after the first batch of stimulus checks were mailed in May.

This increase helped her store recover from the profit declines of March and April, but she doesn’t know whether to credit the stimulus checks or the warmer weather, which encouraged people to get out and shop after a harsh winter.

Bump in the right direction
Andrew Cartts, manager of Bachrach Annex in Riverside, said some of his customers have used the stimulus checks to treat themselves to a new summer outfit.

“We haven’t seen big increases,” Cartts said. “Our sales have been up about 10 or 12 percent.”

Some business owners, like Vaughan Etchell, thought the stimulus checks would spur sales but have been disappointed with the results.

“Our business hasn’t improved at all,” said Etchell, who owns Blazis Hardwood Floors in North Riverside, a company that’s been around for 88 years. “We’ve kept very good records since the 1920s. My grandfather helped the company survive the depression and recession of the Prohibition era, and we’re worse off now than he was then.”

When the checks were mailed out, Etchell said he asked several people if they’d spend their extra money on his company’s services, but they said the amount they received wouldn’t cover the cost of new flooring.

“It just isn’t enough,” Etchell said.

Mack Brown, whose store, Westchester Wheels, is pulling in a third of the monthly profits of a year ago, said the stimulus checks haven’t loosened his customers’ spending.

“No one’s buying new bikes; they’re just repairing old ones,” Brown said. “The stimulus checks went right into gas tanks.”

Stimulating numbers
The IRS has sent out more than 112 million payments so far, totaling about $92 billion nationwide, IRS spokeswoman Sue Hales said. Officials are expecting to issue about 124 million payments overall, worth about $107 billion.

The last big chunk of stimulus checks went out July 11, but those were for tax returns that were completely processed before April 15.

Hales noted that a third of tax returns are filed during the last two weeks of filing season, which is typical in a given year. That means the payment schedule listed on IRS Web site doesn’t apply to everyone.

But if you filed and you’re eligible, you’ll still get a stimulus check.

“(Tax returns) come in huge numbers, electronic and paper,” Hales said. “If your return wasn’t processed completely by April 15, it’s going to take a little longer.”

Hales said filers will receive their regular refunds first and the stimulus payments a few weeks later. People who are typically exempt from filing taxes but who need to file for the stimulus program and people who requested tax filing extensions — that’s about 300,000 people in Illinois alone — have until Oct. 15 to file.

“We’re going to be sending out checks until the end of the year,” Hales said. “They will be sent out in smaller numbers as we get more tax returns processed and the stimulus payments calculated.”

“But there are millions of people that the (online) schedule didn’t apply to.”

Don’t miss the money
More than 210,000 Illinois veterans and retirees who are eligible for stimulus payments have not filed a tax return yet. They are typically exempt from filing but must do so this year to receive their stimulus checks.

Hales said the government will send out reminder packages to eligible people who have not filed: about 5.2 million people nationwide.

The number of eligible people likely is even higher because the IRS doesn’t have numbers for military personnel, railroad retirement recipients and low-income workers.
Whether stimulus spending will make up for the rocky economy is the big question.