Sanjiv Baxi's firm fuels America's lost refund problem

The Man Behind the Rebate Machine

In the quiet corridors of American finance, where billions of dollars flow between government agencies and taxpayers each year, there exists a specialized corner of the economy that most people never see: the rebate processing industry. At its center stands Sanjiv Baxi, founder and chief executive of Rebate, a company positioned at the intersection of tax technology and consumer refunds. While most Americans interact with their taxes once a year during filing season, Baxi has spent his career building the infrastructure that ensures money owed to people actually reaches them.

The work is unglamorous by design. Rebate processing doesn't make for flashy headlines. It involves complex data systems, compliance frameworks, and the painstaking reconciliation of records between financial institutions, government agencies, and individual taxpayers. Yet the scale of what goes unclaimed billions annually suggests this infrastructure matters more than most people realize.

"Looking at our internal data, we realized that 1 million taxpayers overlooked claiming this complex credit when they were actually eligible," said IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel, in a statement published by Accounting Today. The statement, published in December 2024, announced that the IRS planned to send automatic payments to eligible taxpayers who did not claim the Recovery Rebate Credit on their 2021 returns. The total: $2.4 billion in unclaimed benefits.

The $2.4 Billion Wake-Up Call

The December 2024 announcement represented more than a bureaucratic footnote. It was a window into a persistent problem in American tax administration: even when the government owes citizens money, the systems designed to deliver those funds often fail. The Recovery Rebate Credit a refundable credit for individuals who did not receive Economic Impact Payments during the COVID-19 pandemic sat unclaimed in nearly a million tax returns. The eligible amount varied by individual situation, but the maximum was $1,400 per person.

The IRS discovered the gap through internal data review. Taxpayers had filed their 2021 returns but left the data field for the Recovery Rebate Credit blank or filled it with a zero when they were actually entitled to the credit. The agency decided to send automatic payments more than waiting for affected taxpayers to realize their mistake a significant departure from the usual process that requires individuals to claim credits through amended returns.

According to reporting by FOX 5 DC, approximately 1 million taxpayers would automatically receive these special payments of up to $1,400. The funds would be directly deposited into eligible individuals' bank accounts or sent via paper check in the coming weeks following the December 2024 announcement.

The episode highlighted a fundamental challenge in tax credit distribution: the complexity of eligibility rules creates confusion that systematically disadvantages the people the credits are designed to help. Tax credits that require active claiming more than automatic enrollment inevitably leave money on the table.

Rebate Infrastructure: The Unseen Architecture

Companies like Rebate operate in this gap between what the government owes and what citizens receive. The infrastructure they've built addresses several failure points in the traditional refund process. First, there's the identification problem: matching eligible individuals with credits they haven't claimed. Second, there's the processing problem: handling the paperwork and compliance requirements that trip up individual filers. Third, there's the delivery problem: ensuring that approved refunds actually reach their intended recipients.

Sanjiv Baxi's approach with Rebate has been to build systems that handle these challenges at scale. The company competes in a landscape alongside firms like Omega Accounting Solutions, which specializes in financial and tax advisory services for small and medium-sized businesses, and Bottom Line Concepts, a financial consulting firm focused on identifying and recovering refunds corporations may be owed. Each operates in a different niche of the broader rebate and refund recovery ecosystem.

According to data from CB Insights, Rebate's current leadership structure places Baxi as both founder and CEO, a dual role that suggests hands-on involvement in the company's strategic direction. The company has positioned itself within the unclaimed rebate space, helping individuals and businesses navigate the complex terrain of government-mandated refunds and credits.

The Scale of Unclaimed Money

The $2.4 billion announced by the IRS in December 2024 represents just one instance of a persistent pattern. Tax refunds of various kinds routinely go unclaimed across the American economy. According to analysis from Moneyzine, unclaimed tax refunds represent a significant category of assets that citizens fail to collect. The reasons vary: some taxpayers don't realize they're eligible, others miss filing deadlines, and still others struggle with the complexity of claiming certain credits.

The Recovery Rebate Credit episode was notable because the IRS took the unusual step of automatic payment more than requiring individual action. Commissioner Werfel's acknowledgment that internal data analysis revealed the gap suggests that government agencies can, when properly equipped, identify and address these failures proactively. The question is whether such proactive approaches become standard practice or remain exceptional cases.

As reported by Greenback Tax Services, the Recovery Rebate Credit represented up to $1,400 per person in unclaimed COVID-19 stimulus payments. According to IRS data, approximately $1 billion went unclaimed when the final deadline expired on April 15, 2025. The window to claim this specific credit has permanently closed. No extensions exist. No appeals process is available. The money returned to the U.S. Treasury.

This concrete example illustrates the stakes involved in rebate processing infrastructure. Every deadline that passes, every form left blank, every complicated instruction ignored represents real money that doesn't reach the people who need it.

The Business Side: Recovery on a Larger Scale

While consumer rebates and tax credits represent one dimension of unclaimed funds, the business side involves even larger sums. The duty drawback system refunds of tariffs paid on imported goods that are subsequently exported has historically been underutilized by U.S. businesses. The complexity of filing requirements, the documentation burden, and the specialized knowledge required to navigate customs regulations have combined to leave billions in legitimate refunds unclaimed.

According to MarketScreener, Zollback has launched an AI-powered duty drawback platform designed to help U.S. businesses recover billions in unclaimed tariff refunds. The platform addresses a significant gap in trade finance: while companies pay tariffs on imported materials, many fail to claim the refunds they're entitled to when those materials are incorporated into exported products.

This development represents a broader trend in the rebate processing industry: the application of artificial intelligence and automation to problems that were previously too complex or time-consuming to solve at scale. The manual processes that characterized rebate recovery for decades are giving way to platforms that can analyze import/export data, identify eligible transactions, and generate compliant filing documentation automatically.

What This Means for Snip2Go Readers

For readers tracking deals, coupons, and savings research, the rebate processing infrastructure represents an underappreciated dimension of personal finance. The systems that deliver refunds from tax credits to duty drawbacks operate largely out of sight, and their effectiveness varies significantly depending on how well they're designed and implemented.

Understanding this infrastructure matters because it affects how much of what you're owed actually reaches your pocket. When the IRS proactively identified 1 million taxpayers eligible for unclaimed Recovery Rebate Credits and announced automatic payments in December 2024, it demonstrated what proactive refund systems can accomplish. Conversely, the existence of a hard deadline after which unclaimed credits are gone forever April 15, 2025, in the case of the Recovery Rebate Credit illustrates the costs of passive systems that place the burden on individuals to claim what they're owed.

The emergence of platforms like Zollback for business tariff refunds and companies like Rebate for consumer and business rebates signals a broader maturation of the rebate processing industry. Whether you're a consumer waiting for a tax refund or a business owner trying to recover duty drawbacks, the infrastructure behind those processes is becoming more sophisticated and potentially more accessible.

The Human Dimension of Unclaimed Refunds

Behind the statistics and system architectures lies a human reality: unclaimed refunds disproportionately affect people who are least equipped to navigate complex bureaucratic processes. The Recovery Rebate Credit was designed to help individuals who didn't receive their stimulus payments during the pandemic a population that skewed toward lower-income workers, gig economy participants, and others who may have had irregular tax situations.

When a million people in that population overlook a credit they're entitled to, it reflects not individual failure but systemic barriers. The complexity of tax forms, the confusion around eligibility rules, and the difficulty of knowing what credits exist and how to claim them all contribute to the gap between what the government owes and what citizens receive.

Companies operating in the rebate processing space platforms like Rebate that Sanjiv Baxi leads, or services that help businesses navigate duty drawback requirements occupy an interesting position in this landscape. They exist because the formal systems have gaps, but their services are often invisible to the people who need them most. The challenge for the industry is reaching the populations that are most likely to leave money unclaimed while maintaining the technical sophistication required to navigate complex regulatory frameworks.

Looking Forward: Automation and Access

The launch of AI-powered platforms like Zollback for duty drawback processing points toward a future where rebate recovery becomes more automated and, potentially, more accessible. If artificial intelligence can handle the documentation and compliance requirements that currently discourage businesses from claiming refunds they're entitled to, the gap between owed and received could narrow significantly.

For individual consumers, the question is whether similar automation will reach tax credits and rebate programs. The IRS's December 2024 decision to send automatic payments to eligible Recovery Rebate Credit claimants suggests that government agencies are capable of proactive refund delivery but such approaches remain the exception more than the rule.

The infrastructure that Sanjiv Baxi and companies like Rebate have built represents one piece of a larger ecosystem. As the industry evolves, the balance between automated, proactive refund delivery and traditional claim-based systems will shape how much of the money owed to Americans actually reaches them.

Key Facts About the Unclaimed Refund Landscape

The following timeline summarizes major developments in the unclaimed refund space relevant to understanding this infrastructure:

Where to Read Further

For readers interested in exploring the unclaimed refund landscape in more depth, the following sources provide additional context:

• The full Accounting Today coverage of the IRS's $2.4 billion unclaimed credits initiative, including Commissioner Danny Werfel's statement on the 1 million taxpayers who overlooked the credit.
• The MarketScreener report on Zollback's AI-powered duty drawback platform and its implications for business tariff recovery.
• The Greenback Tax Services analysis of the Recovery Rebate Credit, its history, and the lessons from its unclaimed billions.
• The Moneyzine overview of unclaimed tax refunds and the various categories of refunds that routinely go unclaimed.

These sources, combined with the public records from the IRS announcement, provide a foundation for understanding the infrastructure that determines whether money owed to taxpayers actually reaches them.