IRS HAS REFUNDS FOR YOU UNCLAIMED MONEY SITTING UNDELIVERED.Byline: Dana Bartholomew Staff Writer Peter Vargo has paid his taxes to Uncle Sam Uncle Sam, name used to designate the U.S. government. The term arose in the War of 1812 and seems at first to have been used derisively by those opposed to the war. Possibly it was an expansion of the letters "U.S. since 1947 - with nary nar·y adj. Not one: "Frequently, measures of major import . . . glide through these chambers with nary a whisper of debate" George B. Merry. a dirty audit, never a deadline missed. So when the 73-year-old Northridge retiree called the Internal Revenue Service, he was shocked to learn of an unclaimed tax refund Tax refund Money back from the government when too much tax has been paid or withheld from a salary. . ``It was a success,'' he said Friday. ``Four hundred-eighty bucks!'' Vargo is among 4,039 Los Angeles County taxpayers whom the Internal Revenue Service owes a total of $3.5 million in refunds sent back to Uncle Sam as undeliverable un·de·liv·er·a·ble adj. Difficult or impossible to deliver: undeliverable mail. un , officials announced this week. The largest unclaimed refund in the state is $168,274 earmarked for a resident of Monrovia. Other unclaimed returns in Los Angeles County range from $1 to $45,838, according to the IRS An abbreviation for the Internal Revenue Service, a federal agency charged with the responsibility of administering and enforcing internal revenue laws. . Vargo said he didn't know he was due money, and no one from the IRS had contacted him. Only after the Daily News alerted Vargo he was on a list of people due refunds did he know he had to call the IRS. ``I said, How come you didn't send me something?'' Vargo said. ``We didn't know your address,'' he said an IRS official explained after a two-hour wait on the agency's 800 tax refund hotline. ``I said, What do you mean? I've lived in the same place for 25 years,'' Vargo said. The IRS maintains Vargo's refund was unclaimed because it was returned as undeliverable by the Postal Service. Nationwide, more than 90,000 taxpayers are due refund checks worth a total of $67.4 million, according to the IRS. In California, more than $11 million languishes without claim by 14,648 taxpayers. Other top states include New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of , Florida and Texas. ``There's a ton of refund money sitting around,'' said IRS Commissioner Charles O. Rossotti Charles O. Rossotti (born 1941) is an American businessman, and former Commissioner of Internal Revenue. Rossotti is a graduate of Georgetown University (A.B., Economics, 1962) and Harvard Business School (MBA, 1964). , in a statement. ``We want to find the owners of these checks. This is one case where we're more than happy to pass the buck Pass the Buck may refer to:
If taxpayers don't get paid, it's generally because they've moved or filed a wrong return address, IRS officials say. A college student, for example, may have filed a tax return at school and moved before the check arrived. A death or marriage may also result in a check returned to the IRS. In such cases, the IRS files the information and forwards the money to the taxpayer as soon as it learns of a valid address. For some taxpayers, the money is forwarded the next time they file. Otherwise, the money just sits. ``It stays until it's claimed,'' said Deborah Guajardo, a spokeswoman for the IRS based in Los Angeles. ``There's no statute of limitations A type of federal or state law that restricts the time within which legal proceedings may be brought. Statutes of limitations, which date back to early Roman Law, are a fundamental part of European and U.S. law. .'' The IRS received 128 million individual tax returns in 2000, and issued 92 million refunds. The average undelivered undelivered adj → no entregado al destinatario; if undelivered return to sender → en caso de no llegar a su destino devolver al, remitente undelivered refund in Florida is $1,017, the highest in the nation; followed by Minnesota, at $997; New York, at $940; Nevada, at $868; and Illinois, at $808. The average for California is $767. The average unclaimed Los Angeles return is $833 - payable on request, without interest fault lies with the taxpayer. Because of the recent direct deposit tax return option, unclaimed tax returns have dropped $5 million nationwide, and about $275,000 in Los Angeles County, IRS officials reported. Almost 30 million Americans chose direct deposit this year, an increase from 23.5 million a year ago. ``There's an added bonus for using direct deposit,'' Rossotti said, ``because taxpayers get refunds quicker than through the mail.'' GOT A REFUND? To see if the IRS owes you a refund, call (800) 829-1040, or check www.dailynews.com, for the IRS's list for Los Angeles and Ventura counties, sorted by ZIP code. Taxpayers who have moved are urged to file a change of address form No. 8822, available at www.irs.gov, or by calling (800) 829-3676. CAPTION(S): box Box: GOT A REFUND? (See text) |
|
||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion