Government Focuses on Returning Unclaimed Government Money
It has been the top priority for the decision makers in all the states to reduce the amount of unclaimed money. States like New York and California are the front-runners in the government unclaimed money balance. Some of the richest unclaimed fund treasuries in the U.S. are New York with $10.5 billion, California with almost $6 billion and Texas with $2 billion.
The influx of unclaimed money continues, and billions of unclaimed money is still being added to the state treasuries across the nation. Most of the state treasuries have reported that the major source of unclaimed funds and properties are abandoned bank accounts, unclaimed savings and checking accounts, child support payments, uncashed dividends, stocks, customer deposits or overpayments, certificates of deposit, credit balances, refunds, matured life insurance policies, uncashed death benefit checks, and the contents of safety deposit boxes.
A recent report on unclaimed money in the U.S. has disclosed that unclaimed money is not only a looming issue for state governments, but also with the local governments, who have amassed almost $23 billion of unclaimed funds, out of which only $1 billion was claimed. The U.S. federal government holds even more, including $17 billion in unredeemed savings bonds and hundreds of billions of unclaimed dollars in IRS refunds, retirement and Social Security checks that went undelivered or weren’t cashed.
Special task-force and outreach programs have been created by all the state treasuries in order to reach to the maximum number of state unclaimed money owners. In order to tackle the unabated growth of unclaimed money, a majority of the state treasuries and federal agencies have created reclaim programs and community awareness events, which not only educates the residents about their possible missing funds, but also offers an avenue for filing a claim on-the-spot. Irrespective of the organization or search agency, most of the unclaimed money websites have adequate information about the unclaimed money and the claim procedure.
The unclaimed money nightmare continues for the government, as the unclaimed money being held up in various state treasuries is almost reaching $40 billion as of last estimate. The pile continues to grow larger with every month. According to a recent report, almost 30 million American are still not being able to claim their rightful money.
