States Scooping Up Assets From Millions of Americans: ‘Unclaimed Property’ Fattens Public Coffers SCOTT THURM & PUI-WING TAM / Wall Street Journal 4feb2008

States Scoop­ing Up Assets From­Mil­lions of Americans

‘Unclaimed Prop­erty’ Fat­tens Pub­lic Coffers

SCOTT THURM & PUI-WING TAM / Wall Street Jour­nal 4feb2008

State gov­ern­ments, aided by cor­po­rate mid­dle­men, are col­lect­ing bil­lions of dol­lars a year from Amer­i­cans by enforc­ing obscure laws to seize money from for­got­ten bank accounts and other so-called unclaimed property.All states have unclaimed-property laws. The idea behind them is to return dor­mant assets — bank deposits, stock, uncashed pay­roll checks, valu­ables in safe-deposit boxes — to their own­ers. The laws require banks and bro­ker­ages to hand over the assets to states. Most states then make some effort to locate own­ers and return the property.But states from Mass­a­chu­setts to Cal­i­for­nia have turned their pro­grams into big money-makers, and rou­tinely dip into unclaimed assets to cover state expenses. States have broad­ened laws to cover unre­deemed gift cards and uncashed cor­po­rate checks to employ­ees and sup­pli­ers. They’ve required busi­nesses to turn over assets more quickly, and cur­tailed efforts to locate own­ers. And they’ve strength­ened enforce­ment by hir­ing pri­vate audi­tors to exam­ine cor­po­rate books in search of “lost” prop­erty. The audi­tors’ reward: 10% to 15% of proceeds.

via States Scoop­ing Up Assets From Mil­lions of Amer­i­cans: ‘Unclaimed Prop­erty’ Fat­tens Pub­lic Cof­fers SCOTT THURM & PUI-WING TAM / Wall Street Jour­nal 4feb2008.