Come Get Your Money — $266 Million Worth

ABC News’ Huma Khan Reports: Rep. Ron Klein, D-Fl., is reminding Americans to claim their money — a total of 383,000 checks worth $266 million that could not be delivered by the U.S. Postal Service.

It includes $163 million in economic stimulus checks and $103 million in regular refund checks.

Taxpayers have until the end of the week to contact the IRS if they have not received their stimulus checks, which were mailed out earlier this year. By law, economic stimulus checks — each worth $583 — have to be mailed out by Dec. 31. If they don’t meet the Nov. 28 deadline, people will have to wait until next year to claim it as a recovery rebate credit on their 2008 tax return.

There is no deadline to claim refund checks.

"We want people to get reunited with their money," joked IRS spokesperson Eric Smith.

The unclaimed money goes back into the Treasury until its recipients step up.

While $266 million is a whopping amount, every year millions of dollars in refund go unclaimed. The sum seems rather large because of the inclusion of economic stimulus checks this year. Less than 1 percent of these checks have been unclaimed, but that still means thousands of people haven’t received their stimulus.

Taxpayers can claim their money by calling the IRS or going to the web site, where they can update their addresses and have the checks resent.