Tax Refunds

It’s April and springtime, which means that it’s the final countdown to Tax Day on April 17. For those who haven’t yet filed their 2011 taxes, I offer one more item for your consideration prior to the April 17 deadline. And even those families who have already filed their tax returns for the last tax year (and hopefully claimed tax credits for which they were eligible) shouldn’t stop reading here.

April 17 isn’t just the deadline for filing your 2011 tax return without an extension. It’s the deadline for filing past tax returns – specifically, for the nearly one million individuals and families who failed to file a 2008 tax return. Why bother after three years? Well, the IRS estimates that nearly $1 billion in refunds has been just sitting in the vaults, so to speak, and that over half of those who failed to file a 2008 return may be entitled to a refund of over $600. Read more »

In an annual reminder to taxpayers, the Internal Revenue Service has announced that tax refund checks for more than 99,000 taxpayers can’t be delivered because of mailing address errors. The checks average $1,547 this year.

If you haven’t received the refund you were expecting, check out the “Where’s My Refund?” tool on www.IRS.gov to find out the status of your refund and, in some cases, instructions on how to resolve delivery problems. You can access a telephone version of “Where’s My Refund?” by calling 1-800-829-1954.

To avoid problems with refunds in the future, the IRS recommends that you electronically file your tax return and elect to receive your refund through direct deposit to your bank account.  Read more »