Group advocates giving tax rebate to the needy

The leader of an Iowa-based group that promotes a more responsible lifestyle is encouraging people to donate their tax rebate checks to charity. Jerry Iverson, national coordinator of Alternatives for Simple Living, says the checks are basically “extra” money and could easily be passed along.The Internal Revenue Service is in its second week of mailing out the “tax relief” checks, which are averaging more than 400-dollars per check in Iowa. Iverson says his Sioux City-based agency envisions people forwarding the millions of dollars to those less fortunate who aren’t getting checks.While Iverson says some people consider the rebate checks “fundamentally selfish” in nature, he feels that whatever a person’s political motives, the money can be used for a good purpose. He says there are a lot of agencies that’re working to improve the world that could use the money.The I-R-S sent out 92-thousand checks to Iowans last weekend which total 40-million dollars. At the end of the ten-week mailing, more than 900-thousand checks will have been mailed to Iowans.