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Jul 31, 2008 6:44 am US/Eastern
Hundreds Of Thousands Of Stimulus Checks Unclaimed
WASHINGTON (AP) ―
The Internal Revenue Service has initiated efforts to help poor, disabled and elderly Mid-Atlantic residents collect more than $70 million in payments before the October filing deadline.
More than 230,000 of the federal stimulus checks have gone unclaimed in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, the IRS said. They are worth at least $300 each.
Many residents, including those whose only income is a Social Security check, didn't earn enough to file a 2007 tax return, a requirement for getting the stimulus check.
"Three hundred dollars is a lot of money to a person trying to make ends meet, to handle rising fuel costs, rising food bills," said Michael Cassidy, who is executive director of the Commonwealth Institute for Fiscal Analysis, a Richmond think tank. "So the outreach is really critical here, especially if the folks are homebound."
The checks still can be claimed by filing a tax return by Oct. 15. There are 97,000 uncollected checks in Maryland. State Comptroller Peter Franchot will tour Baltimore, Frederick, the Eastern Shore and suburban Washington to help residents to file, according to spokesman Joe Shapiro.
In Virginia, 124,000 checks are uncollected, and local community groups are working to get the word out, Cassidy said.
In Washington, 15,069 residents have yet to file. The highest concentrations of unclaimed payments are in urban centers in Maryland and Virginia, and in the eastern portions of Washington, according to figures released by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Fairfax County in Virginia, which has more than 1 million residents, has 8,251 outstanding payments worth $2.5 million.
(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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