To start this article, let’s talk about what to check before you file your taxes! The easiest thing would be for me to say ALL, but I want you to get useful information out of this! Most of these are common sense, but some people may not be familiar with the new technologies that the Internal Revenue Service is leveraging to help people with their electronically filed taxes. E-filing is much easier to track now with the new way the IRS allows us to track our refunds!

More than 99,123 US taxpayers have filed their returns, but didn’t follow up when the refund didn’t arrive. I don’t know what kind of happy and carefree life they have where they don’t need that money! If you’re one of those people and want to enlighten me on your secret to financial freedom, of course I’ll ignore my tax return too! In case you were wondering, all those lost tax returns are worth over 153 MILLION dollars!

Now, if there isn’t a grand conspiracy involving great wealth rejecting other wealth, and you’re one of those unlucky people who really wants your refund, the money is there, and you can visit the Internal Revenue Service’s online refund. tracker Where’s my refund? This nifty tool will post the status of your refund and can sometimes tell you why the delivery failed.

Some not-so-tech-savvy folks can still contact the IRS through their toll-free automatic refund tracking number (I bet you’re itching to hear the voice of the machine telling you to hit the buttons to select now!) The number is (800)-829-1954.

For the super tech-savvy folks who are glued to their smartphones, the IRS has an app for that! IRS2Go is the premier app that allows you to check the status of your refund in real time!
As with any of these methods of getting your refund back, you’ll need your Social Security Number, filing status, and expected refund amount to use this app.

The app also has several other features, such as signing up for IRS tax updates and following the IRS on the popular social network Twitter. The last drop-down option on this smartphone Swiss Army knife is the “contacts” sections of IRS2Go, which has numbers and hours of operation for all IRS tax helplines.

The IRS2Go app is free and available on both the Apple App Store and Android Market.