Here’s an interesting resolution for the new year.  Resolve to take the time to find out if you may have some extra money coming to you!  Yes, you heard me right, extra money.  Perhaps you filed your taxes and discovered that you were entitled to a little something back but either moved or got married and changed your name after filing and forgot to notify the IRS.  Perhaps the same set of circumstances occurred after a loved one has passed away.  Or even more simply, maybe you just moved, forgot to notify a bank that you had an account with, and the forwarding order on your mail has long since expired.  Basically, if you had any major changes in your life, you may have some money coming your way, but you must put in a little effort to claim it. 

In the case of the IRS, sometimes refund checks get returned because the taxpayer moved and did not notify The Service.  You may not have even filed a tax return at all!  There is good news on that front as well.   The IRS allows taxpayers to file and claim refunds up to three years to do so–the three year window starts with the last day to file your taxes for a particular year, generally April 15th.  That means that if you could have been due a refund on the amount of federal income tax you had witheld from 2004, 2005, and 2006 you can still file your return and claim those refunds, however you will be assessed a late-filing penalty.  Those who wish to claim 2004 refunds only have until April 15, 2008 to do so.

In the other instances, after a certain period of time,  financial institutions will turn over to each state’s designated branch (Department of Commerce, Department of Revenue or Comptroller’s Office) funds that cannot be delivered to the rightful owners.  The most common examples are inheritances in which the recipient has moved or changed their name and monies or stocks left in accounts which may have been forgotten about. 

If you are curious as to whether you are one of the millions of people with a portion of the billions of dollars of assets that are designated as unclaimed, there are steps that you can take.  Most states have a search feature set up on the designated department’s website (for example the New York Comptroller’s Office has a link to search unclaimed funds on the front page) so you can do a search quite easily.  All you need to do is run a search for your state’s unclaimed funds (ie: “California unclaimed funds” has a link to the state’s Controller in the second position).  You can also find one of a number of fee-based search companies, but it is easy enough to do on your own with little technical or financial knowledge required.  All you have to really do in most situations is prove that you are the owner, and a copy of your drivers license and/or birth certificate will suffice.  If you think the IRS has a refund check for you, you can use their easy search tool, Where’s My Refund?, but that is only if you are looking for the prior year.  You can also call the IRS Refund Hotline at 1-800-829-1954.  The best way to make sure your future refunds get to you is to fill out a Form 8822-Change of Address

This entry was posted on Monday, December 31st, 2007 at 8:50 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.