IRS says between undeliverable refunds and economic stimulus payments,

Delawareans are missing more than $660,000

Wilmington, DE -- The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has reported more than $660,000 in undeliverable refund and economic stimulus payments and is presently looking for Delawareans who are missing these checks.  After spear-heading an initiative with the IRS to help qualifying Delawareans fill out the necessary paperwork to obtain their stimulus checks, Congressman Mike Castle (R-DE) wants to ensure all Delawareans who filed their taxes receive their payments.  The IRS says the outstanding payments include 654 economic stimulus checks, totaling $389,000, and 248 regular refund checks totaling nearly $272,000.  In some cases, taxpayers are missing both payments.  These 902 checks were returned by the U.S. Postal Service due to mailing address errors.  According to the IRS, the average undeliverable stimulus payment is $595, and the average undeliverable regular refund is $1,095. 

On a national scale, there is more than $266 million from 383,000 unclaimed checks due to postal errors.  As of September 2008, the government has distributed 116 million economic stimulus payments with 279,000 checks, totaling $163 million, being undeliverable as well as more than 105 million regular refunds with only about 104,000 payments, equating to $103 million, being undeliverable due to mailing address errors.

Stimulus checks must be mailed by December 31st of this year, so taxpayers who did not receive their stimulus checks that filed must update their addresses with the IRS by November 28, 2008.  Delawareans who are missing their checks can log onto www.irs.gov and click on "Where's My Stimulus Payment?" to check the status and update their mailing address or call 1-866-234-2942.

For those taxpayers missing their regular refund checks, they should also log onto www.irs.gov and click on "Where's My Refund?" to check the status of their refund and resolve any delivery issues or call 1-800-829-1954.

Checks will be resent as soon as taxpayers update their addresses.  The IRS encourages Delawareans to avoid future problems with undeliverable checks by selecting direct deposit for their refund checks when filing next year, which can be selected with both paper and electronic filing.  The IRS also encourages taxpayers to file their tax returns electronically because e-file eliminates the risk of lost paper returns, reduces errors, and speeds up refunds.

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