U.S. Treasury Looking for Owners of Lost Money
Owners of lost money are being instensely searched for by the U.S. treasury. Currently, the U.S. treasury is home to billions of dollars in unclaimed bonds, treasury bills, notes, war bonds and accrued interests. Online promotion campaigns, digital awareness program, print media campaigns to radio campaigns – Every possible advertising mechanism, has been put in place by the State treasury to reunite the owners of the lost money with their unclaimed cash and interests.
In response to the rising pile of unclaimed money in the U.S. treasury, a TreasuryHunt program has been initiated, which is essentially a database maintained by the government to track matured bonds which have been marked as unclaimed or abandoned. This database is also a great resource for those bond holders who have stopped receiving interest payments for treasury bonds.
The TreasuryHunt database is searchable by a Social Security or an Employee Identification number. An online form is available for filing once the owner is spotted in the database. The only caveat is that the TreasuryHunt database only keeps series E database from 1974 onwards.
In addition to the comprehensive unclaimed funds databases, the U.S. Treasury and states have made the task of locating and claiming lost money or property much easier. Most of the federal and state governments’ websites have a detailed online information page regarding the process of claiming the missing money, bonds or property. Claim forms can be submitted in a very secure and easy manner with just a few clicks.
The IRS is also a big contributor to unclaimed money pile in the U.S treasury, especially with all the unclaimed funds in the IRS being handed over to the U.S treasury. “The biggest concern the IRS has is getting these people to claim the money they’re entitled to,” Mark Hanson, spokesman for the IRS says in an August news report on NC unclaimed money.
“If they’re eligible for benefits, we want them to get them. … We just want to tell them, ‘Look, the money is there. It’s yours. Go get it.’” Lucy Gorham of Chapel Hill advocacy group MDC Inc. says it’s a national issue: “And I think the IRS has been surprised at how much money is left unclaimed. … But when you have a group of seniors not filing tax returns, that’s logical to me. Social Security isn’t taxed, and all those Social Security recipients might not even know they’re eligible.”
