IRS Is Looking For Taxpayers Who Haven't Received Their Stimulus Checks And Refund Checks

The Internal Revenue Service is looking for taxpayers who are missing more than 279,000 economic stimulus checks totaling about $163 million and more than 104,000 regular refund checks totaling about $103 million that were returned by the U.S. Postal Service due to mailing address errors.

It is crucial that taxpayers who may be due a stimulus check update their addresses with the IRS by Nov. 28, 2008. By law, economic stimulus checks must be sent out by Dec. 31 of this year. The undeliverable economic stimulus checks average $583. The regular refund checks that were returned to the IRS average $988.

All a taxpayer has to do is update his or her address once. The IRS will then send out all checks due. The Where’s My Stimulus Payment? tool on the IRS Web site is the quickest and easiest way for a taxpayer to check the status of a stimulus check and receive instructions on how to update his or her address. Taxpayers can update their addresses with the Where’s My Refund? tool on the IRS Web site. It enables taxpayers to check the status of their refunds. A taxpayer must submit his or her social security number, filing status and amount of refund shown on their 2007 return. The tool will provide the status of their refund and in some cases provide instructions on how to resolve delivery problems

In order to avoid these problems in the future, the IRS encourages taxpayers to choose direct deposit when filing their returns. Direct deposit eliminates lost, stolen or undeliverable checks because it refund checks can be deposited directly into either a checking or savings account.