State Treasurer Joe Torsella Wednesday announced Treasury returned $254,122,398.05 in unclaimed property to Pennsylvania taxpayers in calendar year 2017. This historic return is a 34 percent increase from 2016.
“Today’s announcement represents my steadfast commitment to ensuring Pennsylvanians are a priority,” said Torsella. “One way the Department can do this is by increasing efforts to reunite property back to its rightful owners. In July, we announced that for the fiscal year we had surpassed historic return amounts, and we continued those efforts by returning more than $26 million in just a few months to close out the calendar year.”
Unclaimed property is any financial asset that has gone unclaimed for a period of time, usually three years. Under Pennsylvania law, businesses are required to report this to Treasury.
Each year, Treasury receives millions of dollars in unclaimed property-- items such as abandoned bank accounts, forgotten stocks, uncashed checks and contents of safety deposit boxes.
Each year, Treasury receives millions of dollars in unclaimed property-- items such as abandoned bank accounts, forgotten stocks, uncashed checks and contents of safety deposit boxes.
The property remains available for claim by the owners or their heirs in perpetuity and Treasury serves as the custodian until it can find and verify its rightful legal owner.
Treasurer Torsella announced in December that the Department would be implementing a new “lost contact” standard designed to better protect Pennsylvanians by helping to prevent the reporting of securities that are in fact not abandoned, but rather buy-and-hold investments.
Potential claimants may search Treasury’s website for unclaimed property, or Treasury’s Bureau of Unclaimed Property is also available toll-free at 1-800-222-2046, to help conduct a thorough search for unclaimed property.
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