UNCLAIMED, UNREAL PROPERTY

[Geee]

Human Events:

Douglas Lindholm of Investor’s Business Daily sounds the alarm about the latest Orwellian scheme for shaking down business owners – ironically coming from Delaware, a state which has invested considerable effort in attracting corporate headquarters.

The scheme revolves around “unclaimed property” audits. ”Delaware originally enacted its unclaimed property laws as a consumer protection mechanism to reunite Delaware residents with dormant bank account balances, uncashed paychecks, and other unclaimed property,” writes Lindholm. ”And these laws are still valid. But Delaware is now interpreting those laws against businesses to create a colossal revenue source for the state government.”

Today, unclaimed property is Delaware’s third-largest source of revenue after income taxes and franchise fees. Last year alone, Delaware seized $319.5 million from liquidated property while returning only $18.9 million of unclaimed property to its rightful owners.

Delaware does this through an unfair, onerous and expensive audit system that “looks back” to 1981, and contrives unclaimed property if the company doesn’t have records for all those years. This process often costs companies millions of dollars, mires them in years of audits, and forces them to deal with third-party auditors who are motivated by contingent fees to invent unclaimed property where none exists.

[Draggingtree]

Three-way fight over unclaimed property

By Lyle Denniston on Jun 10, 2016 at 1:43 pm

Seeking to bypass lower courts, a number of states have asked permission to sue each other directly in the Supreme Court in a high-stakes fight over millions of dollars’ worth of unclaimed property. Delaware wants to sue two states, one of those states — Wisconsin —wants to sue Delaware, and twenty-one other states also want to sue Delaware.

http://www.scotusblog.com/2016/06/three-way-fight-over-unclaimed-property/