Where’s my rebate?

And when I try to find out about it, why can’t I get through on the IRS phone line?

Those are some of the questions that dozens of MoneyLine readers have asked in recent weeks about the federal rebate program.

So what are the answers? Look at the list below. It includes some of the problems that have arisen in the administration of the rebate program. You might find something that applies to your situation:

•Offsets: Some people may not realize that Uncle Sam will take some — or all — of their rebates, under the federal “offset” program.

That’s the case if you’re delinquent on federal or state income taxes, child-support payments or federally backed student loans. New figures from the U.S. Treasury show that, for delinquent state taxes alone, the Treasury has claimed about $309,000 of the rebates that were scheduled to be distributed to 697 Rhode Islanders.

In addition, the Treasury has seized $1.7 million of the rebates that were headed to about 4,370 people in Massachusetts and about $1.68 million of the rebates that were scheduled to be distributed to about 3,500 people in Connecticut.

•Wrong Bank Account: If you filled out the “direct deposit” section of your federal return, you generally should have received — or will receive — your rebate by direct deposit, too.

However, the IRS has acknowledged that, because of a programming error, about 1,500 rebates were transmitted to incorrect bank accounts — and Social Security numbers were transmitted along with those payments.

The IRS says it quickly corrected the problem and that no additional erroneous deposits have been made, said National Taxpayer Advocate Nina E. Olson.

According to the IRS, “Almost all taxpayers who should have received their payments electronically [in these cases] have since been sent checks.”

The remaining taxpayers will receive their checks within the next few weeks. The banks have returned about 250 of the erroneous deposits to date, and the IRS is seeking to recover the rest.

(The IRS is also deciding whether to provide a credit monitoring service to the taxpayers whose Social Security numbers were exposed as a result of the glitch.)

•Longer Wait: Instead of waiting to receive your federal income-tax refund this year, you may have arranged through your preparer to obtain a short-term loan — called a refund anticipation loan — using your refund as collateral.

Or maybe you decided to have your tax preparation fees or electronic filing fees deducted, in advance, from your refund.

In either case, you’ll receive a rebate check by mail, instead of direct deposit. As a result, you’ll have to wait longer for your rebate.

Overall, more than 20 million people are in this situation, and have had to wait up to 2 ½ months longer than other taxpayers to receive their rebates, said Olson, who serves as the independent voice of the taxpayer within the IRS.

•SSI Recipients: If your only source of income last year was from Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits, you’re not eligible for a rebate.

But because of confusion over the rebate program’s complicated rules, some people have filed returns hoping for a rebate “and are now wondering why they have not received their payments,” Olson told Congress at a hearing last month.

•Phone Trouble: “Despite the reassignment of employees from other functions and despite the IRS’s decision to extend the employment of temporary staff hired for the filing season, the agency has been unable to keep up with the volume of calls,” Olson said.

Overall, the IRS has received more than 26 million phone calls related solely to the rebates. And most people haven’t been able to get through — they’re left on hold, and eventually have to hang up.

For the week ended May 24, for example, only about 39 percent of callers who were waiting to speak with an IRS representative got through. That’s down from 80 percent for the same week last year, according to a report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).

“The largest source of taxpayer frustration has been the difficulty of reaching an IRS telephone assistor on the toll-free lines,” Olson said.

Some MoneyLine readers have skipped the phones altogether and instead have had luck visiting one of the local IRS offices to speak with an IRS representative to try to resolve rebate problems. The offices are at 380 Westminster St., Providence, and 60 Quaker Lane, Warwick.

•Smaller Rebates: In general, you’re eligible for an additional rebate amount of up to $300 for each child you have who was under 17 as of Dec. 31, 2007.

But thousands of people were eligible for such a rebate and haven’t received it.

Why? The IRS processed the rebates based on information contained in 2007 federal income-tax returns.

In some cases, taxpayers didn’t check the “child tax credit” box on the cover of their returns.

In other cases, two software programs that some tax preparers used weren’t properly programmed to check the box.

In both situations, the result was the same — people didn’t get the additional amount even though they were entitled to it by law.

As a result, the IRS plans to mail out about 230,000 additional checks this month to those affected, IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman said. (These people will also receive a special “adjustment letter” explaining the situation, he said.)

•Wrong Notices: The IRS is mailing notices to let you know how your rebate was calculated. But up to 22,000 taxpayers may have received a notice that contains information about a different taxpayer’s rebate.

The IRS blames the problem on an outside printer. (The vendor will issue corrected notices explaining the error.)

•Perspective: It’s important to keep in mind that many of the problems listed here today are small when compared with the overall number of rebates the IRS is issuing.

And there’s no doubt that the IRS has done a remarkable job overall. “In light of its limited resources, I believe the IRS on balance has done an outstanding job of administering both the 2008 [tax-filing] season and the Economic Stimulus Act,” Olson said.

However, “A few glitches and taxpayer frustrations have arisen in the course of the IRS’s administration” of the rebate program, Olson said.

Robert J. Sclama, who teaches taxation at Bryant University’s program for financial planners, said he’s not surprised.

“In any kind of special program like this, that was put together so quickly, it’s not unusual that … they’re running into some glitches,” said Sclama, who runs his own tax-consulting and financial-planning firm in North Providence.

But it’s frustrating if one of these glitches affects you. As Shulman put it, “It is virtually impossible … to run a payment operation of this size without encountering some problems, and we have had a few in this case.

“I should also point out that we understand that no matter how high our success rate is overall, it is irrelevant to the taxpayer for whom something has gone wrong. For that taxpayer, the system did not work, and we must do everything we can to deal with that stimulus payment as quickly and efficiently as possible.”

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