$12.5M in tax refunds available to 12K in South Carolina who haven’t filed their 2020 federal returns

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD) — The IRS owes nearly 12,000 South Carolinians a tax refund from the 2020 tax year, but the deadline to file to claim the refund is Friday.

More than $12.5 million in refunds are owed to South Carolinians who have yet to file their 2020 federal tax return. The IRS reports the average refund across the Palmetto State is roughly $840.

Across the nation, the IRS estimates roughly 940,000 people are eligible for $1 billion in refunds.

Friday’s deadline is an unusual one. Normally, the filing deadline to claim old refunds falls in April. However, the three-year window for 2020 returns was postponed until Friday deadline because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

IRS spokesperson Rodney Foushee said some folks might have forgotten to file their refund because 2020 was a much different year than normal.

“We had an extraordinary event COVID happened in 2020, so a lot of people were busy with other things, and some of these folks were people that maybe have been retired and just work a part-time job, a college student that didn’t have to file a return,” he said. “So one thing you can do, just easily go to IRS.gov. It has a lot of information, and we have an interactive tax tool that you can use. You can also check where’s my refund to just see if you got a refund in 2020.”

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