Thousands of Illinois taxpayers may be owed tax refunds on unclaimed returns, but a key deadline will soon pass, the IRS says. According to the IRS, an estimated $1 billion in unclaimed refunds from tax year 2021 will soon become property of the United States Treasury unless that money is claimed by the taxpayers it is owed to. The IRS’ website estimates that 1.1 million Americans did not filed their Form 1040 federal tax returns for that year, which were due on April 15, 2022. The median refund of those unfiled returns is $781, according to officials, but the average Illinois taxpayer may be owed even more. In fact, Illinois taxpayers are estimated to have left approximately $42.5 million unclaimed for 2021 tax refunds, according to the IRS. More than 44,000 Illinois residents didn’t file returns, with a possible median refund of $892, the fifth-highest amount of any state. Only New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Massachusetts had higher median amounts for unclaimed tax refunds from that year. If a taxpayer didn’t file a return for 2021, they only have a limited time to do so, the IRS says. Under U.S. law, taxpayers have a maximum of three years to claim a tax refund, meaning that those who were eligible for refunds in tax year 2021 have until April 15 to claim them.
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