26 million dollars in duplicate state tax refunds were electronically sent out to 66,700 Louisianans on Tuesday, March 12th as a result of a computer malfunction. Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne says if you got a duplicate return, don’t spend it.
“We’re asking taxpayers not to do anything, we are taking care of it. We are going to be able to recoup the vast majority of these over payments electronically, which is the way that they were paid in the outset.”
Dardenne says at this point they still aren’t sure exactly what caused the malfunction that triggered the duplicate returns, but they’ve put some changes in place that should catch it before it can happen again.
“The folks are working on it, and it was obviously a computer error, and we are taking steps to correct it and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
If you’ve already spent some of that money, Dardenne says you need to know that you won’t get to keep it. He says the state will be recouping every erroneous dollar that was sent out, and If you’ve already blown through some of that money…
“They will get a letter from the department of revenue if some of it has been spent in order to get it recouped, I mean the state is going to get the money back, there are not going to be any double payments. if someone has already spent the money then they need to realize it is going to need to be paid back.”
