Updated August 7, 2026. Quick answer: when a refund is owed to someone who has died, IRS Form 1310, Statement of Person Claiming Refund Due a Deceased Taxpayer, is how someone else claims it. 🔴 But two large groups of people do not need it at all — and one of the form’s own instructions reverses what almost everyone assumes about the death certificate.
IRS worksheet walk-throughs: Pub 559 Table B, decedent information returns worksheet.
Related reading on this site: IRS Tax Topic 156 and IRS Tax Topic 161.
Related reading on this site: IRS Notice CP05 (refund verification hold), IRS Notice CP53 (refund check mailed instead of direct deposit), IRS Notice CP53A (direct deposit rejected by the bank) and IRS Notice CP53D (paper check instead of requested direct deposit).
IRS estate-administration forms, read line by line: Form 1310 Part I, Form 1310 Part II and Form 1310 Part III.
First: you may not need the form
The instructions are explicit. Do not file Form 1310 if you are claiming a refund for a deceased taxpayer and:
• You are a surviving spouse filing an original or amended joint return with the decedent; or
• You are a personal representative… filing, for the decedent, an original Form 1040, 1040-SR, 1040-NR, or 1040-SS that has the court certificate showing your appointment attached.
The IRS gives its own worked example: a court-appointed representative filing the decedent’s Form 1040 “does not need to file Form 1310… However, you must attach to his return a copy of the court certificate showing your appointment.”
So the question is not “did someone die” — it is which return is being filed and by whom.
The three boxes, and which one is you
Line A — the joint-name cheque. Check it “only if you received a refund check in your name and your deceased spouse’s name.” 🔴 The procedure is unusually concrete: return the joint-name cheque marked “VOID” along with Form 1310, to your local IRS office or the Service Center where you filed, “along with a written request for reissuance of the refund check. A new check will be issued in your name and mailed to you.”
Line B — the court-appointed representative, on an amended or abatement claim. For a Form 1040-X or Form 843. ⚠️ “You must attach, to the Form 1310, a copy of the court certificate showing your appointment, even if you have already sent the court certificate to the IRS.” Having sent it before does not count.
Line C — nobody was appointed. Check it if you are not a surviving spouse seeking reissuance of a joint-name cheque and there is no court-appointed or certified personal representative. Part II must also be completed, and you must have proof of death.
🔴 The instruction that reverses what everyone assumes
Line C requires proof of death — a copy of the death certificate, or the formal notification from the appropriate government office (the instructions give the Department of Defense as the example) informing the next of kin. And then:
Do not attach the death certificate or other proof of death to Form 1310. Instead, keep it for your records and provide it if requested.
Nearly everyone attaches it. The requirement is to have the proof, not to send it.
Where it goes
Attached to a return, follow that return’s instructions — and Form 1310 can be filed electronically when it is attached to a Form 1040, 1040-SR, 1040-NR or 1040-SS filed electronically. Filed separately, it goes to the Service Center where the original return was filed; if the original was e-filed, to the Service Center designated for the address on the Form 1310.
Figures verified against the IRS Form 1310 and instructions (Rev. 12-2025) and the IRS About Form 1310 page on September 30, 2026.
Sources
Quoted from the IRS instructions to Form 1310 (Rev. 12-2025), Statement of Person Claiming Refund Due a Deceased Taxpayer — the form PDF and its About page, retrieved 7 August 2026. The IRS names Publication 559, Survivors, Executors, and Administrators, as the companion guide.
Related: other cheques payable to someone who has died · the final tax return.