(Part 1 of 2)

The state of California’s unclaimed funds department takes in approximately $300 million every year. What’s it to you? Well, if you or someone you know is or ever was a resident of the Golden State (or had any kind of business dealings, whether you knew it or not), a chunk of that big pile of CA forgotten funds could very well belong to you!

Under the California unclaimed funds law, missing money like forgotten savings and checking accounts, cash and stock dividends, mineral deposits, uncashed checks and money orders, state of California unclaimed tax refunds, salary checks, gift certificates, and other assets are turned over to the Treasury Department if the rightful owners don’t locate them within a given time period. This ‘dormancy period’ varies widely from state to state, but in CA it’s three years. These forgotten funds then head to the California unclaimed property div, where they sit in the state’s general fund until they’re returned to their rightful owners. This is where state employees in-charge of the CA unclaimed cash were criticized recently. Seems that they have been eager to track down and take hold of the lost assets from the establishments holding them but showed less interest in contacting the actual owners in the CA unclaimed funds records.

One of the main reasons for the government’s inability to return forgotten money to residents, according to the government, is that they cannot be located. The issue is, who would think that people like Angelina Jolie, ZsaZsa Gabor, Gerri Halliwell, Victoria Beckham, Keanu Reeves, Brad Pitt, Adam Sandler, Marlon Brando and Jennifer Lopez could be difficult to find? Their names and the names of a number of other celebrities are just a few of the names in the CA missing money list and yet they have never been contacted by the employees at the California Unclaimed Funds Division. They’re all owed checks for lost assets by CA ranging in amount from hundreds to the thousands as in the case of Angelina Jolie. This just proves CA state employees’ interest in holding this cash in the general fund for use in balancing the budget deficits for as long as they possibly can. In fact, there was a recent ruling by a judge on CA abandoned assets, saying that the state wasn’t doing enough to locate the rightful owners and has temporarily halted the ability of the state to seize it until a better policy of returning it to the actual owners has been adopted.

(to be continued)

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State seeks owners of money – Billings Gazette
CHEYENNE – The state’s Unclaimed Property Division is making its annual effort to find the owners of more than $30 million in unclaimed money. Nancy Russell, director of the Unclaimed Property Division, a branch of the state treasurer’s office, said …

Taxpayers Entitled To Interest When Getting Unclaimed Funds – NewsNet 5
COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Ohio Supreme Court has ruled that taxpayers are entitled to interest when they recover unclaimed funds from the state. Since the 1960s, the state has held in a trust fund millions of dollars from uncashed checks and dormant …

High court: Ohio can’t keep interest on unclaimed funds (BizJournals)
Ohioans have more reason than ever to check regularly published lists of unclaimed money the state is holding.

Ohio must pay interest on unclaimed funds – Cincinnati.com
The Ohio Supreme Court has handed a little tax-season gift to thousands of people who have drawn money from the state’s unclaimed-funds account over the past 18 years. People who have received funds from the account since 1991 are entitled to …