IRS Officials: Hoosiers Owed Millions In Uncollected Refunds

Photo: Internal Revenue Service

An IRS spokesperson says Hoosiers are owed millions in refunds and will get them -- once the IRS gets their address.

The Internal Revenue Service says it has more than $1 million in refund checks it would send out, if it only knew how to find the people they belong to. The checks were returned as undeliverable.

Spokesman Luis Garcia says millions of dollars go unclaimed every year because people move and neglect to give the IRS their new address or inquire about their refunds. By law, he says, the postal service cannot forward refund checks.

“There‘s a lot of college students. Some people are getting married; they‘re getting divorced; they‘ve moved; they‘re in the middle of something major in their lives,” Garcia says. “They move on, and they forget the check.”

Garcia says most of the unclaimed refunds will get to the right people eventually.

“For most people, what happens is you file again next year and we‘ll just bundle this year‘s refund into the coming year‘s refund — or if you have a balance due, we‘ll just apply that to your balance due,” he says.

Garcia adds people could avoid the whole problem by checking the box to receive their refund by direct deposit.