If you do find "Unclaimed Property" @ the state controllers website and claim it, depending on where the funds are from you need to pay taxes on it. If its insurance/or from an insurance company it should be tax free. But if not Id ask your accountant. in 2009 I found $13,000.00 that was dividend/stock related money from Prudential Securities. I did not think twice about taxes when I claimed the money and never received any tax forms for the money at any point. Well 2 months ago I went to the ATM only to notice my account was short over $13,230. Last year someone did Identity theft and cleaned out my checking account to the point that B of A closed my account because of the negative balance. B of A reopend a checking account (diff acct number) for me and apologized and refunded all service fees to me and returned my money. So when I saw the discrepancy in what I knew my balance was vs what was printed as my balance I thought I was a victim of fraud again. Well when I went into the bank to inquire about the missing money, I was told it was the CA Franchise Tax Board. Basically the daily compounded penalties and interest for over 5 yrs, was more than what I received from the Unclaimed property. Lesson is make sure you do or do not have to pay taxes on the funds. I found more unclaimed property couple weeks ago and will not bother to claim it as it's more hassle then its worth for me. Oh and in 2009, the state of CA had no budget and was broke, so they were issuing IOU's instead of checks. So I held on to my IOU from June till Sept, and then when it was announced that CA was redeeming IOU's for checks I decided to fly to Sacramento to redeem my check as not to wait, just in case they ran out of funds...lol.

This post was edited by freak4plumeria on Sat, Sep 13, 14 at 16:37

WELL SAID! roxanne

WOW! did not know that. Thanks for the information.