Check our database to see if the IRS has a check for you

Here’s a bit of good news amid the financial turmoil: The IRS has more than $65,000 in economic stimulus checks it’s looking to give out in Central Virginia.

The catch: The agency can’t find the recipients.

In all, nearly 150 economic stimulus checks remain unclaimed in Lynchburg and the counties of Amherst, Appomattox, Bedford, Campbell and Nelson.

The Internal Revenue Service this week released the names of Virginia taxpayers who are missing their economic stimulus checks, as well as their tax refunds.

 
-Find out if the IRS has money waiting for you to claim it.
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- To claim outstanding refunds and stimulus checks, taxpayers must update their address with the IRS.
- To change an address, visit IRS.gov then click the “Where’s my stimulus payment?” tool and follow the instructions, or call (866) 234-2942.
- For unclaimed tax refunds, go to IRS.gov and click the “Where’s my refund?” or call (800) 829-1954.

Statewide, more than 6,400 stimulus checks are unclaimed, along with 2,200 refund checks.

The deadline to claim the stimulus checks is Nov. 28 since the law requires that they be sent out before the end of the year. The average total of unclaimed stimulus checks in the Lynchburg area is $491.

The checks have gone unclaimed because they have been returned by the U.S. Postal Service, said IRS spokesman Jim Dupree.

“In some of these cases, these people may have moved,” Dupree said. “They may have done their paperwork, then moved. … Those checks aren’t forwarded. We try to locate folks based on the information on their return.”

Dupree said most checks made it to taxpayers, but a small percentage was returned because of address problems.

To make sure taxpayers get their checks in the future, Dupree recommended they choose to have their checks deposited directly into their bank accounts. He also encouraged taxpayers to file tax returns electronically to avoid lost paperwork and speed up refunds.