IRS has $153M in undelivered tax refunds; are you owed?

Stimulus payments roll off printing presses at the San Francisco Regional Financial Center in Emeryville, Calif., Thursday, May 8, 2008. The first batch of rebate payments started hitting bank accounts last week through direct deposits. Bush administration officials are visiting government check printing centers around the country on Thursday for events highlighting the fact that millions of rebate checks are in the mail. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

  Eyewitness NewsWASHINGTON -- The Internal Revenue Service has $153 million in undelivered tax refund checks looking for the right homes.

The agency says there are 99,123 taxpayers to whom the checks weren't delivered because it had the wrong mailing address. The returned checks average $1,547 apiece.

It's an annual exercise for the IRS, which has been nudging taxpayers toward accepting their refunds through direct, electronic deposits to their bank accounts. Out of the nearly 103 million refunds the IRS issued through early June this year, 76 million were direct deposits.

Of those delivered by the mail, about 0.3 percent bounced back to the IRS because of return address problems.

Taxpayers hoping to claim their refund can click on the "Where's My Refund" link at IRS.gov, or call 1-800-829-1954.

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