IRS addresses refund problems
More than $3.4m wasn’t delivered to Mass. taxpayers
The Internal Revenue Service is holding more than $3.4 million in refund checks belonging to about 2,000 Massachusetts taxpayers. The paybacks, most from tax year 2009, were returned by the US Postal Service because of mailing address errors, the agency said.
The average check is for $1,673, slightly higher than undeliverable refund checks of previous years.
“The average refund is up a little bit over last year because of the stimulus package,’’ said Peggy Riley, an IRS spokeswoman, referring to federal spending programs to boost the economy, which included tax cuts.
The returned checks were not “lost in the mail,’’ said Dennis Tarmey, spokesman for the Greater Boston district of the US Postal Service.
“We made a good-faith effort to deliver these checks, but were not able to because either the address was incorrect, or the person had moved without leaving a forwarding address.’’
The Rev. Ron Floyd, a priest at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Wareham, is on the list because “for some reason the IRS had the wrong address for me,’’ he said. Floyd said he has corrected the address, and expects to receive his 2009 refund “in two weeks.’’
Nationwide, 111,893 checks were returned to the IRS this year, worth a combined total of $164.6 million.
“It’s a great service the IRS is providing, at a time of year when people can use the money,’’ said Edgar Dworsky, founder of consumerworld.org and a former Massachusetts assistant attorney general specializing in consumer protection.
“But I worry that if this gets a lot of publicity, scam artists might try to capitalize on it by sending mass amounts of e-mail, pretending to be the IRS, and asking people to enter their personal information, including a Social Security number, in a form.’’
Riley said, “The IRS does not communicate by e-mail, so if you get an e-mail claiming to be from the IRS, it’s probably an attempt to steal your identity.’’
She added that the IRS encourages taxpayers to choose direct deposit when they file their returns because it puts an end to lost, stolen, or undeliverable checks.
Taxpayers can find out if the IRS is holding a check for them by visiting a prominent “Where’s my refund?’’ page on the IRS.gov website, or by calling the agency’s hotline at 1-800-829-1954.
The IRS is prohibited by law from posting a list of people due refunds on its website, Riley said, but it is allowed to provide the list to media outlets, who can post or print the names. Yesterday, Boston.com published an interactive tool that allows taxpayers to search the IRS national list for their name.
To check the list on the IRS.gov site, taxpayers are required to enter a social security number, tax status, and the exact whole dollar amount they are owed, as shown on their 2009 tax return.
The agency’s automated phone service requires the same three responses.
D.C. Denison can be reached at denison@globe.com. 
