By Associated Press
Mobile, AL – The state of Alabama says it still owes taxpayers more than $10 million in refunds from last year.
But Revenue Commissioner Tim Russell says taxpayers still waiting for refunds make up less than 1 percent of the total.
The Mobile Press-Register reports Russell says state income tax revenue fell 8 percent in the year that ended Sept. 30. And he says many people wrote off investment losses on the returns they filed last year, causing refunds to increase by 30 percent.
Gov. Bob Riley's administration used rainy-day funds to pay some refunds before mid-July, when Alabama would have had to start paying 4 percent annual interest on refunds from returns filed by April 15. The state owed $51 million to 50,000 taxpayers at the end of September.