Tax Attorney Patrick T. Sheehan Warns of Loss of Tax Refunds

Posted on March 30, 2017

Local tax attorney Patrick T. Sheehan warns that if you have not yet filed your federal Form 1040 tax return for 2013 with the IRS, any refund listed on that tax return will soon be barred by the refund statute of limitation.

“Generally speaking, a taxpayer has three years from the due date of the tax return to claim a refund for that year, plus any extension. The due date of the 2013 federal Form 1040 tax returns was April 15, 2014. If an extension was not timely filed, the expiration of the refund statute of limitation for 2013 is April 18, 2017. If you have not yet filed your federal Form 1040 tax return for 2013 with the IRS, I strongly urge you to do so on or before April 18, 2017, to ensure that you receive the refund to which you are entitled,” Sheehan suggested.

The IRS recently announced that nearly 1 million people should have filed federal tax returns for 2013 but didn’t, leaving $950 million in unclaimed refunds for 2013. According to IRS estimates, half of the potential refunds for 2013 are $763 or more.

If your tax return for 2013 is filed on or after April 18, 2017, and if an extension was not timely filed, the law bars any refund to which you are entitled. Even if you have unpaid liabilities for other years, the lost refund does not apply to any of the other years. Sheehan stresses that, “The application of this law acts to deny refunds to which hard-working Americans are otherwise entitled.

Unfortunately, many millions of dollars are lost in this fashion every year simply because taxpayers did not file their tax returns within the applicable limitation period. I would rather see these funds go into the pockets of the taxpayers who earned this money instead of being kept by the federal government.”

Patrick T. Sheehan is a former IRS attorney and is the owner of Patrick T. Sheehan and Associates, Attorneys at Law, P.C. Mr. Sheehan’s practice focuses exclusively on assisting individuals and businesses with their tax disputes before the Internal Revenue Service and the Illinois Department of Revenue. Patrick T. Sheehan and Associates is the largest tax dispute resolution law firm in DuPage County.

For more information regarding Patrick T. Sheehan and Associates and the services they offer, call 877 – 4 IRS LAW or contact them online at www.sheehan-law.com. “If you have not yet filed your tax return for 2013 or for any other year, please immediately call us,” Sheehan advised. “We can help.”