IRS owes 4,000 valley taxpayers

By Timothy Pratt

Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2008 | 2 a.m.

More than 4,000 people in the Las Vegas Valley have something to be thankful for — and apparently don’t know it.

That’s how many taxpayers have yet to collect their economic stimulus or refund checks from the IRS this year.

This is one of the rare cases in which the federal government can’t spend taxpayers’ money, so it wants to hear from all of the people on this list.

If you’re one of them and want your check by the end of the year — a Christmas present, perhaps? — you better get in touch by Nov. 28.

The total owed to valley residents in the two types of checks: $3.1 million. Most of these folks — more than 3,000 — are owed stimulus checks. Remember those? They were mailed out with much fanfare this spring. The valley could certainly use as much economic stimulus as it can get right now.

A look at the list of people who didn’t get their checks shows that about a third of them have Hispanic surnames, a higher percentage than seen in the local population. Census Bureau estimates put the Hispanic population of Clark County at 26 percent.

Hernando Amaya, editor at El Tiempo, a local Spanish-language weekly, said the high number of Hispanics missing their checks may be an outcome of the sharp drop in jobs in the construction industry. The vast majority of those workers were Hispanic. And even some illegal immigrants paid taxes, using a special number the IRS supplies for that purpose.

Nationwide, the unemployment rate for Hispanics was at 8.8 percent in October; in Nevada, the overall unemployment rate was 7.6 percent.

With the loss of jobs, many have left the valley in the past year or so, some for Mexico. So those checks may remain with the U.S. Treasury for a while.

And though the $3.1 million may not seem like much for the local economy come the shopping season, for those 4,000 households, the end-of-the-year holidays could be a tad sweeter for the money.

Or not.

Keith Schwer, director of UNLV’s Center for Business and Economic Research, noted that the hope with the stimulus checks was that people would use them at the checkout counter, jolting the consumer economy. But research shows that most taxpayers used them to pay off bills such as credit cards.

For those who don’t get around to it, there is always next year, according to the IRS. If you file a tax return in 2009, the agency will recognize your name, and as long as you don’t move again, officials guarantee that the check will be in the mail.

Uncle Sam says you can take that to the bank.