Cash for the Clueless

Missing your refund check? The IRS is looking for you

The only slight perk to paying taxes is that rare time when you get a hefty refund check from the IRS, giving you the false sense of “free money.” Thousands of people in Pennsylvania and New Jersey have not cashed in on this wonderful feeling.

The Internal Revenue Service is looking for almost 3,200 Pennsylvanians that have not claimed their refund checks for 2008. The IRS owes residents in the commonwealth more than $3.71 million, which is an average of $1,148 per check.

More that 400 taxpayers in the Lehigh Valley alone have checks coming to them, totaling almost $800,000.

Pennsylvania is not the only place missing out on its own money. There are nearly 3,000 taxpayers in New Jersey who have not cashed in. The average check to each person is $1,365. There is almost $4.2 million in unclaimed refund checks.

All of the checks still owed to residents were returned to the IRS by mail because of mailing address errors. Nationwide, there are 107,831 taxpayers that have not received their refunds.

If you have not received your refund go to http://www.irs.gov and click on the "Where's My Refund?" tool. You can also call a toll-free telephone number, 1-800-829-1954.

To avoid this from happening in the future, always choose the direct deposit option for your refund, say IRS officials.
 

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