As part of the new tax-cut bill, the child tax credit increase is being "accelerated" and $400 checks will be mailed out to ~$25 million people in July, as per the news reports.

Now, what Dan wants to know is if this is a real rebate, or just the same thing we'd see when we file next year. The last time the GOP pushed these rebates out (pre-election) it all sounded nice and good. Until I did my taxes and realized it wasn't anything but an advance. As a result, I wound up paying a few hundred bucks in federal taxes, since it was an advance on money that would have made me even-steven.

We were misled then. Are we being misled now?