Not-so-easy money?

This refund should be simple, but one-third so far aren't claiming it

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- It's perhaps the easiest $30 to $60 you'll ever collect from the IRS, but more than one-third of early-bird tax filers failed to claim the telephone excise tax refund, available this year to just about any taxpayer who paid for long-distance telephone service in recent years, the IRS said Wednesday.

"A little more than one-in-three returns are omitting the telephone tax refund," said Eric Smith, an IRS spokesman.

Some of those taxpayers are correct in not claiming the refund if they didn't pay for long-distance telephone service. But plenty of taxpayers who aren't claiming the refund are "omitting it in error," Smith said.

The refund is available this year only, and came about after court decisions found the excise tax, first levied in 1898 to fund the Spanish-American War, should no longer apply to telephone service as it's billed today. Taxpayers can claim a refund based on the 3% excise tax they paid on long-distance calls from March 2003 through July 2006