If you're missing your '08 tax refund, IRS hopes you'll call

Here's a switch: The Internal Revenue Service is looking for 1,849 people in Tennessee — but to give them money rather than collect it.
Among those owed money in the form of unclaimed tax refunds are 276 people in Davidson County alone, and there are no strings attached. The 2008 tax-refund checks came back to the IRS from the post office as "undeliverable."

Statewide, there is nearly $1.8 million in undelivered checks awaiting the rightful owners, or about $958 per taxpayer.

"Typically, this occurs because people move and leave no forwarding address," said Dan Boone, the IRS spokesman for Tennessee. "We do update addresses based on the Postal Service database, but if people don't change their addresses with the post office or with us, then we can't deliver their checks."

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The IRS releases the list of names to try to find those who are due refunds, Boone said, and the agency urges anyone who knows someone on the list to pass the information along.

The fact that his name is on this year's IRS list was a surprise to Janiro Hawkins II of Nashville, who really wasn't so hard to find via a Google search. Hawkins also has a Facebook page.

"I filed my taxes, so my address is there," Hawkins told a Tennessean reporter. "I don't know why they couldn't find me. But I wasn't expecting a check because they usually take the money for child support."

Boone said the easiest way to avoid the hassle of an undeliverable check in the future is for taxpayers to select the direct deposit option into a bank account.

But if a refund check hasn't been delivered because of a bad mailing address, the taxpayer can go to the "Where's My Refund?" section of the agency's Web site, www.irs.gov, and update the address there, too, Boone said.

There also is a toll-free phone number for this purpose at the IRS: 1-800-829-1954.

Those who didn't get their checks need not worry that the government will keep their money, though, Boone added.

There is no deadline for claiming a refund on a return that has already been filed.

And even if a taxpayer doesn't get his or her refund check this year, they'll get the money after filing a tax return next year with a current address.

Contact G. Chambers Williams III at 615-259-8076 or cwilliams1@tennessean.com.

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