The Internal Revenue Service is reporting that it still has about 5.2 million tax rebate checks which it cannot send out because the people who should get them have not filed a 2007 tax return. According to a report in USA Today, these citizens only need to fill in a few lines on IRS form 1040A, in order to get their money. The IRS says that veterans and retirees, those who could use the money the most, make up the major portion of the population that has not yet received it's rebates. The IRS expects to issue 124 million rebate payments by year's end. So far, about 76.5 million of those payments have gone out.

Ever since Monday I've been stuck with a pressing dilemma: What to do with my economic stimulus payment. To be frank, I was actually surprised to receive a letter from the IRS this week since the payment schedule for those who had filed their returns electronically had passed. I assumed that I was unable to qualify for one.

Without giving away my adjusted gross income, I always knew that I wouldn't get the full $600 that was distributed to most single taxpayers, but I wasn't exactly sure if I'd get a fraction of that. And I don't mean to seem ungrateful or anything, but when I read the letter and found out that I would receive a windfall of $6.95, as you can imagine, I was kind of taken aback, so I immediately called friends and family members to inform them of my newfound fortune.

I mean, what exactly is a person to do with $6.95 in this day and age anyway? With soaring inflation, I'll be lucky to buy myself a one-way bus ticket down the block.

At least consumers with full-sized payments took to the malls in the second quarter, boosting retail sales – let's see how long that lasts. But I just don't know how my $6.95 is going to stimulate anything. I've narrowed my list of options. Here's what I've been grappling with.

Tax rebates are starting to arrive, and many retailers are looking for ways to get your money from you with enticing deals.

The Associated Press reports that Congress has reached an agreement on an economic stimulus package. The report does not estimate the total size of the package, but it says that taxpayers will receive rebate checks ranging between $300 and $1,000 per household. Businesses will get tax breaks as well.

And the devil is in the details. Under the tentative plan, families with children would receive an additional $300 per child, subject to an overall cap of perhaps $1,200. Rebates would go to people earning below $75,000 and couples with incomes of $150,000 or less. Workers would have to have earned at least $3,000 in 2007 to receive the rebates.

Businesses would receive $70 billion in tax breaks to invest in plants and equipment, and the plan would give small businesses more generous expensing rules and allow businesses suffering losses now to reclaim previously paid taxes. Furthermore, the plan would raise the size of the mortgages that Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) could buy from $417,000 to $700,000.

So what does this all mean to you?