LEWISTON – Still waiting for that stimulus check? Maybe just your regular tax refund? The Internal Revenue Service wants you to have it.

In Maine, more than $400,000 worth of stimulus money and more than $200,000 of regular tax refunds have yet to be successfully delivered, according to the IRS. Nationwide, about $163 million in stimulus checks and about $103 million in regular refunds were undelivered because of mailing address errors.

“It happens every year,” said Peggy Riley, spokeswoman for the IRS. “Every year we do a media campaign in the fall to get the information out to the taxpayers, that we have these checks sitting here, waiting for them.”

The stimulus checks issued this year have added to the pile.

Riley said often times people do not update their mailing addresses with the federal government or fail to give the postal service a forwarding address when they move.

“So the checks we send out get sent back to us,” she said.

The IRS has released lists of names of people who are owed money, including 175 people in Androscoggin, Franklin and Oxford counties. The people on the list have filed their taxes, were eligible for either stimulus or regular tax refunds and never received the payments owed to them.

Steven Merrill of Brownfield was on the list.

“(The IRS) sent me a thing in the mail in July saying that I was supposed to receive it in the next week or so,” he said. “They said if it didn’t it come then, it would be in the next two or three weeks.”

But Merrill said he never got the check and when he called the IRS, all he got was a busy signal.

“I waited and waited and waited and couldn’t get through,” he said.

Merrill was happy to hear he could still get his check, which he said was for $300.

Rita Dube of Lewiston also is owed money. The only problem is, there are too many Rita Dubes in Lewiston.

“I know at one time, we were five Rita Dubes in Lewiston,” said the Rita Dube of Lewiston who is executive director at the Franco-American Heritage Center. “But I know at least two have passed away. I’m certain of that. So now we’re down to three.”

Dube said she was not sure if she was owed money or not, but planned to look into it.

“It could be another Rita Dube, but I’m going to check, my goodness,” she said.

To check and see if the IRS owes them money, people can either log on to www.IRS.gov and click on ‘Where’s my stimulus payment’ or ‘Where’s my refund’ or call a pair of toll-free numbers. To check on a stimulus payment call 1-866-234-2942; for regular refunds, 1-800-829-1954.

People who want to claim their stimulus checks must contact the IRS no later than Nov. 28 because by law the checks must be issued by Dec. 31.

Riley, the IRS spokeswoman, said stimulus checks that are not claimed by the end of the year will be lost, but regular refund money would roll over indefinitely.

“For the regular refunds, there really is no deadline, just whenever the taxpayer comes forward,” she said. “Once a check is issued and then it comes back to the taxpayer’s account, it stays in that taxpayer’s account until they come forward again. So if they don’t file next year for some reason, then they file the year after, they’ll still get it.”