405,000 Floridians Un-Stimulated
August 6th, 2008 by flanewsConfusion has kept 405,000 Floridians from claiming their economic stimulus checks. The bulk of the unclaimed money belongs to seniors. You have to file a tax return to get paid but as Whitney Ray tells us, many senior stopped filing years ago.
Hear it Here: 405,000 Floridians Un-Stimulated
Pearl Fuller is living on social security. She heard about the economic stimulus checks available to people who file a tax return, but she didn’t think she qualified.
“If I done retired for 30 years, I don’t have any taxes,” said Fuller.
Fuller never filed and she’s not alone. More than 405,000 stimulus checks are sitting unclaimed, waiting on Florida residents. They’re worth about 120 million dollars.
That’s millions of dollars that could be used to boost our state’s failing economy. Pearl knows what she’d do with an extra 6-hundred bucks.
“You know what I would do with it. I would do some shopping, cause I’ve been retired, so I’d do some shopping for myself,” Fuller said.
AARP is trying to let seniors know that it’s not too late to claim their checks.
“We have seniors now that live on social security alone and 600 dollars is a tremendous amount of money for those people,” said Associate State Director Charles Milsted.
Still many seniors are simply confused about how to get their checks and whether or not the money is actually free.
“I was afraid it would mess up my social security, insurance disability check,” said 63 year-old Hope Frazier.
The deadline to claim a stimulus check is October 15th. To find out if the government is holding a check with your name on it you can call (800) 829-1040 or visit the IRS www.irs.gov.
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