We bet if you turn your mattress over, clean out your car and check the laundry, you’ll be sure to find at least a few dollars. That’s a good start. And guess what, there are even more places that you can find lost and unclaimed money for both personal and business. And it might be more than just spare change.

Each year, there is an estimated $58 billion in unclaimed money in the United States. And there’s got to be a few bucks for you lying around somewhere.

For both individuals and families, there are countless sources of unclaimed money out there just waiting to be spoken for and if you do a little bit of homework and research, you may just find a piece of that pie.

Here we list the more common places to look as well as why a small business should also keep their eyes open for unclaimed money.

The IRS.

Yes, if you have moved or changed your address recently, you may have lost out on a tax refund because it was returned to the IRS. And while you think the IRS knows just about everything about you and your business, sometimes, these checks get returned. If you think you may have missed out on a tax refund from the IRS you can first call them, but you can also go to the IRS website and search for “Refunds.” The same goes for your state taxes. Call your department of revenue or go to their website. You can also check out unclaimed.org to search by state and county.

Bank Accounts.

This is one of the more common places that unclaimed money can be found. Maybe you had that passbook savings account for years and maybe you had a couple hundred dollars in it. You stuffed the passbook somewhere in your bedroom and forgot about it. Hopefully, it earned some interest after all those years. If you think you might have a bank account or two laying around somewhere out there, check out the banks you have business with to see if there is anything or you can go to missingmoney.com to check. Also, many states also provide this such as in Massachusetts with findmassmoney.com

Life Insurance.

You may have some life insurance benefits laying around that you don’t even know about. Maybe your uncle or aunt listed you as a beneficiary in a life insurance policy and you never claimed it or they could not find you. One of the best places to check is http://www.demutualization-claims.com/ Who knows, you may have some serious cash waiting for you.

Unclaimed Money For a Business.

We often think of unclaimed money from a personal level as we cited above but for many in business, there are often many forms of unclaimed money for a business. And the list can be lengthy. As a business, you have all kinds of expenses and in some cases, its not all tracked. As a collection agency for small business, we see unclaimed money all the time but that comes in the form of clients not paying our customers.

Let’s take payroll for example. You might find that you have payroll checks that were not cashed, or separate payroll bank accounts that have money in them after a switch. If you had separate tax accounts for your payroll and then made a change, those could be out there as well. How about looking into deposits you made such as office rent, equipment leases, utility deposits and more. You could also find that you have overpaid insurance premiums that have never been returned to you or mailed to an old address. Maybe you overpaid a vendor and are due credit and that notification was mailed to an old or incorrect address.

The government may actually owe you money from old pension and retirement accounts to failed banks and other sources such as insurance. Or other types of property. You can log on to https://www.usa.gov/unclaimed-money to find out if the government owes your business any money.

It is well worth the effort to take time to research any unclaimed money. And as you might imagine, we are big fans of making sure you get your hands on any money that is yours.

Published On: February 1st, 2019Categories: Advice for Businesses, Advice for Consumers

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