According to the U.S. Census Bureau, about 1 in 6 Americans move each year, and the average American moves 11.7 times in a lifetime.
Notify the post office that services your old address to ensure that your mail is forwarded to your new address. Your mail will usually be forwarded for 12 months. It’s important to note, however, that not all postal branches will forward government checks. As of November 2007, a total of $110 million in refund checks for 115,478 taxpayers had been returned to the Internal Revenue Service as undeliverable.
We also recommend that you notify the IRS of your address change to ensure that you receive any refunds or correspondence regarding your past and current tax returns. Just complete Form 8822: Address Change Request and mail your address change information to the IRS campus where you filed your last return. For a list of IRS campus addresses, see IRS Mailing Addresses. If you filed a joint return last year and you and your spouse establish separate residences, you both should notify the IRS of your new addresses.
Taxpayers may also write a letter informing the IRS of an address change. The letter must include the taxpayer’s full name, old and new address, social security number and the taxpayer’s signature. This letter will be mailed to the IRS campus where your return is normally filed.
If you want to complete Form 8822, the H&R Block software will generate the form for you. On the Forms menu, click Open Forms. Scroll down the list until you see Form 8822 (Change of Address), and double-click the form to open it.