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Home | Finance | Taxes
Claim Your 2003 Tax Refund or Lose It 
By: Richard Chappoe
Get a nice warm feeling when your tax refund check comes in? Well, you might want to check if you got it for your 2003 taxes. Over 2 billion went unclaimed and are about to expire.
Feel like taxes are too high? Of course you do. It is a god given write of Americans to complain about taxes. That being said, you lose the right to complain if you don’t follow up on money the IRS owes you. For the 2003 tax year, 1.8 million Americans have failed to do so to the tune of a whopping 2.2 billion dollars.
Ever read those lists of the richest people in the world? You know, the billionaires like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. Well, taxpayers are turning the IRS into a billionaire. They are doing it by failing to claim a couple billion dollars in refunds in 2003. Who would have thought people liked the agency that much?
I get a headache thinking of the things I could do with one billion dollars, much less two. I imagine the IRS feels the same way. Think of all the audits they could fund, but why the surplus?
1. Some taxpayers don’t file because they don’t think they made enough money.
2. If you left a salaried job and opened your own business, you can easily overpay.
3. You moved and didn’t tell the IRS.
4. You got married, changed your name and forgot about taxes collected under your old name.
5. Worked for a short time at a job, but didn’t get a W-2? You might have forgotten the taxes.
Can you imagine just throwing 1,000 out the window of your car? If you haven’t claimed your 2003 refund, you are about to do just that. After April 17th of 2007, it expires. That’s right, you lose it and the IRS gets to spend it as it wishes!
2003 may seem like a long time ago, but a trip to the past can be profitable. If you could use an extra grand, and who can’t, you may be able to get it by checking your records for the year. Don’t assume you received a refund. Make sure. You might just be surprised.
Article Source: http://www.uberarticles.com/articles
Richard A. Chapo is with BusinessTaxRecovery.com - learn more about glorious tax deductions.
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