IRS seeks Nevadans entitled to overdue refunds

Tuesday, Nov. 14, 2000 | 12:32 p.m.

The Internal Revenue Service has federal tax refund checks for more than 1,100 Nevadans whose checks were returned to the agency as undeliverable.

"This is from last year and years prior to that," Karen Westphal, an IRS spokeswoman in Phoenix, said of the refunds.

"There is no statute of limitations for claiming these refunds."

Refunds in Nevada total more than $1 million and vary in amounts from $1 to more than $66,500. The checks average $868 in Nevada, the fourth highest in the country behind Florida, Minnesota and New York, Westphal said.

Nationally, about $67.4 million is owed to about 90,000 people.

The most common reason checks are returned to the agency is because people file their return and then move without notifying the IRS of their new address. Or women may marry, change their name and then move and can't be found, Westphal said.

Still other undeliverable checks are the result of human error, when taxpayers provide incorrect or incomplete addresses when they mail their return.

The list of Nevadans due money is more than 60 pages long. People who think they are due a refund should call the IRS at 1-800-829-4010.

The agency adds that the best way to avoid the risk of having a refund lost, stolen or undeliverable is to have refund checks deposited directly into a bank account.