IRS Seeking 17,000 People It Owes a Total of $11 Million : Taxes: These Southern Californians’ refund checks were returned because post office couldn’t find current addresses.

Internal Revenue Service officials announced Monday that they are trying to find about 17,000 Southern California taxpayers whom the federal government owes more than $11 million, by far the largest booty of homeless tax refunds in the country.

The sprawling Laguna Niguel district of the IRS--which covers the Long Beach and South Bay portions of Los Angeles County and all of Orange, San Diego, Riverside, Imperial and San Bernardino counties--”ranks No. 1 in the nation” in uncollected refunds, according to Wilson Fadely, the national IRS spokesman in Washington.

Officials in Laguna Niguel are searching for more than 10,000 taxpayers, whom the government owes $6.2 million, said spokeswoman Gindy Barnard. Their refund checks were returned because the U.S. Postal Service was unable to obtain a current address for the recipients, officials said.

In the Los Angeles district, which covers most of Los Angeles County and a sliver of Ventura County, the IRS is searching for about 7,000 taxpayers who are owed about $5 million, said spokeswoman Diane Cobb.

“But no other district is even close to those two,” Fadely said.

In figures released throughout the nation on Monday, the government is seeking 92,000 taxpayers for an unclaimed $54 million, the highest amount of uncollected refunds in IRS history, Fadely noted.

IRS officials say the Los Angeles and Laguna Niguel districts combined are the largest in the federal system. Still, the number of uncollected refunds is unusual.

For the most part, IRS officials blamed the high mobility of Southern California residents for the undelivered checks, but said that some of that $11 million includes refunds claimed on tax returns with bogus Social Security numbers.

Barnard said the government has had a problem in recent years with illegal immigrants filing returns with phony Social Security numbers in an attempt to legitimize residency. In other cases, the numbers simply may have been transposed. Either way, the INS must track down the taxpayers and rectify the problem before refunds are issued, she said. And in these cases, the IRS can’t find them.

This has been more of a problem in Southern California than in other parts of the country, she said, although the government does not keep statistics on uncollected refunds resulting from the fake Social Security numbers.

“The vast majority of uncollected refunds are due primarily to people moving so frequently,” Barnard said. “That, too, tends to happen more often in Southern California than in other parts of the country.”

Vivian Doche-Boulos, chief demographer for the Southern California Assn. of Governments, agreed, and blamed the state’s economic woes on much of the transiency.

“We Californians move much more than the national average,” Doche-Boulos said. “Especially in the last four or five years and mainly because of the economy. A lot of the movement is within Southern California, but in recent years, a lot of people have abandoned the region altogether, leaving nary a trace.

“Because of the recession, our outflow has been much greater than our intake. So these (IRS) figures don’t surprise me at all.”

IRS officials say the uncollected refunds range from $100 to $3,000 and average about $650. If they aren’t claimed within three years, they are turned over to the general fund of the government for “deficit-busting,” Fadely said.

“When we finally do locate the people, they’re usually disgusted that we couldn’t find them,” Barnard said. “A lot of the time, though, they’re embarrassed that they failed to notify us or that that much money almost fell through the cracks.”

IRS officials said they are as vigilant about tracking down people with money coming to them as they are in tracking taxpayers who owe the government money.

Anyone who thinks the might be due a refund can call 800-829-1040.

“We want to give away money for a change,” Barnard said. “Contrary to our image, of course.”