Refund Checks On The Way

If you are still waiting for your Alabama tax refund check, you're not alone.

According to the Department of Revenue, there are 166,759 refunds approved by the state that have yet to be mailed to taxpayers.

Jacki Pate, an accountant at Tax Professionals in Mobile, says she has clients calling her every day.

"They look at the refund to go ahead and pay off some bills or in some cases they use that money if they owe the IRS money, so it really has put some people into a financial bind," says Pate.

Pate's clients and thousands of other Alabamians growing increasingly inpatient shouldn't have to wait much longer for their refund. By law, Alabama has 90 days from the April 15th filing deadline to pay the refunds or the state will begin owing taxpayers 4% interest. The deadline is July 15th.

Carla Snellgrove, a spokesperson for the Department of Revenue, says the state will avoid the interest by writing $98.6 million in checks by tomorrow. At least some of the money will come from a $100 million sum Governor Bob Riley approved to be transferred from the state's Rainy Day Fund to the Education Trust Fund. The Education Trust Fund is the fund that pays school teachers and handles the state's income and sales tax.

Snellgrove says some refunds will continue to be delayed beyond the July 15th deadline because of questions with the tax returns, but she insists that is not unusual and has nothing to do with the state's cash flow problems.