Up to $6,728 in unclaimed refunds is available for taxpayers: Deadline is quickly approaching
1.1 million people never claimed a refund for the 2021 tax year leaving an estimated $1 billion unclaimed. The deadline to file and claim is coming soon.
The 2025 tax season that kicked off on 27 January is almost over. Americans have until 15 April to submit their tax returns or file for a six-month extension. However, those that didn’t claim a refund from the 2021 fiscal year, the 15 April, 2025 deadline is the last call to submit the 2021 1040 forms.
The Internal Revenue Service says that more than 1.1 million people across the nation still haven’t claimed their refund from that year. That has left the agency holding onto over $1 billion in unclaimed refunds by their calculations.
The IRS estimates that the median refund amount is $781, but that does not include the Recovery Rebate Credit, which corresponds to the $1,400 stimulus check handed out in response to the covid-19 pandemic. Nor other credits like the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), worth up to $6,728 in 2021, and the 2021 Child Tax Credit, worth up to $3,600.
What US taxpayers seeking unclaimed refunds must do
The last chance to submit a 1040 form to the IRS to claim any refund from the 2021 tax year that may be coming your way is 15 April, 2025. The agency warns taxpayers who are seeking to claim their 2021 tax refund that if they failed to file a tax return for 2022 and 2023, their tax refund may be withheld.
So, you should check your paperwork to confirm that you are up to date with your filing. If you haven’t filed a 2022 and 2023 tax return, the effort may be worth your time to claim any tax refunds that you may not yet have claimed for those years either.
You can check your tax records online with your ID.me account. If you don’t have one, it may be something you should think about doing. You can not only check tax records, but it can also be used for accessing Social Security information and can help protect your digital identity across multiple websites to help ensure that nobody is pretending to be you online.
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