Don't Get Escheated

Escheat is the legal term used to describe the "right" of the government to take ownership of unclaimed property.

The concept of escheat is that property always has a recognized owner. If unclaimed, that ownership passes to the state or federal government as custodian if no other claimant to ownership exists or is readily identified. In the U.S., each state jurisdiction has its own laws and regulations governing escheat rights and related matters.

In most states, the escheated property is held in custody in perpetuity with no time limit for a claim to be made by the rightful owner.

In a handful of  states, if no claim is made for the escheated property within a certain period of time , the state takes final ownership of the property.

I became familiar with the law of escheat when I was the Corporate Director-Taxation for a Fortune 500 company. My department was responsible for filing the unclaimed property reports for the corporation each year.

You would be surprised at how many checks that a Fortune 500 company writes that do not get cashed in a year---payroll checks, employee reimbursements, dividend checks, checks to vendors, customer credits, etc.

Other common examples of escheated property are rent and utility deposits and bank and brokerage accounts which have no activity over a period of time.

Escheat exists so that the corporation, bank or other entity that previously owned the property does not get to retain the property if unclaimed. Ownership transfers to the government for "safekeeping" until it is claimed.

Generally, payroll checks that are not cashed must be turned over to the state after one year.

Bank checks usually have a dormancy period of 3-5 years before they must be reported as unclaimed as is also the case with dormant bank accounts.

Here is the list of the dormancy rules in each state before unclaimed funds are required to be escheated to the state.

Source: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/escheat.asp

Why have I decided to write about the obscure topic of escheat when there are so many other subjects of interest these days?

My home state of Ohio just passed a new budget law that includes $600 million of funding for a new stadium for the Cleveland Browns that will be paid for out of the unclaimed property fund of the state.

Source: https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2025/07/01/gov-dewine-signs-off-on-using-unclaimed-funds-for-browns-stadium-future-ohio-projects/

The new law also allows other athletic and cultural projects in the state to tap the fund for up to 25% of their cost in the future.

Another $1.1 billion has already been allocated in the budget for other yet to be determined projects beyond the $600 million for the Cleveland stadium.

Instead of merely acting as a safekeeper of the unclaimed funds, the state of Ohio will now transfer this money to the athletic and cultural projects fund after 10 years of custody with the state.

What I found most interesting in all of this is the fact that the state of Ohio currently has almost $5 billion in its unclaimed property fund.

Ohio has a population of about 8.5 million individuals who are age 18 or older according to the 2020 census.

This means that there is on average almost $600 per capita in unclaimed funds for every potential taxpayer in the state.

$5 billion is also more than half of the $9.5 billion in state income tax revenues Ohio collected in the 2024 fiscal year.

Any way you cut it, that is a LOT of unclaimed money.

Predictably, a class action lawsuit has already been filed to block the state from accessing these funds.

Source: https://www.cleveland.com/news/2025/07/legal-battle-erupts-over-ohios-plan-to-seize-unclaimed-money-for-new-browns-stadium.html

The legal question to be decided is whether the 10 year grace period to claim the escheated property held by the state is sufficient to withstand an argument that it violates due process and the right of citizens to avoid having the government taking their property without just compensation.

If you live in Ohio my suggestion is to visit the website from the Department of Commerce Division of Unclaimed Funds soon where you can search the database of unclaimed funds before the 10 year grace period closes.

This is the website.

I actually saw that I have four small amounts of unclaimed funds in my name. 

I suggest googling "unclaimed funds website" for the state you live in.

There is also a website managed by the National Association of State Treasurers that allows you to search more broadly over many U.S. states and Canadian provinces.

That website is MissingMoney.com.

Don't get escheated out of what is rightfully yours.

Someone might want to build a stadium with your money!

Five Things To Know About The Big Beautiful Bill

President Trump signed the Big Beautiful Bill into law on July 4th.

Most people probably understand that the major focus of the bill was to extend the tax cuts that were passed in Trump's first term that were scheduled to expire at the end of the year.

What are some other items in the bill that are worth knowing about?

It is important to understand that the BBB had to be developed and pass as a so-called reconciliation bill.

Reconciliation legislation is used to implement changes to federal spending, taxes or the debt limit to reconcile these with the fiscal priorities set forth in a budget resolution passed previously by both the House and Senate.

It can be only be used to reduce deficits, alter tax policies or modify mandatory spending programs (e.g., Medicare, Medicaid etc).

Non-budgetary issues or policy provisions that are unrelated to the budget cannot by included in the legislation due to what is referred to as the "Byrd rule" which establishes that reconciliation bills need only a majority vote (rather than 60 votes) to overcome a filibuster in the Senate.

In that the Republicans only had a 53-47 majority in the Senate and it was expected that not one Democrat would ever vote for anything President Trump wanted, it was necessary to use the reconciliation process to accomplish Trump's agenda.

Source: https://x.com/i/grok?conversation=1941805603795484973

What are five things to know about the Big Beautiful Bill?

1. All of the major tax reform in the Trump tax cuts passed in 2017 were extended permanently. These included the increase in the standard deduction (which was nearly doubled in 2018), reduction in tax rates, continuation of the child tax credit and increase in the estate tax exemption.

The BBB also increases the standard deduction by another $1,000 single/$2,000 married bringing the total standard deduction to $15,750 for single filers and $31,500 for joint filers. In a continuation of current law, seniors get an extra $2,000 if single and $3,200 if filing jointly.

In addition, seniors 65 and over will receive an extra $6,000 bonus standard deduction ($12,000 joint) for the years 2025-2028. This was to fulfill Trump's campaign promise to not tax social security benefits but which could not be done directly in the reconciliation bill due to the Byrd rule.

This chart summarizes the standard deduction amounts for seniors.

The new senior bonus deduction begins phasing out at incomes above $75,000 single/$150,000 for joint filers and is completely phased out above $250,000 joint, $175,000 single.

It is estimated that this provision will eliminate taxation of Social Security benefits for 90% of beneficiaries.

The child tax credit also increases from a $2,000 maximum credit to $2,200. 

The other big changes are No Tax on Tips (up to $25,000 for taxpayers making up to $150,000 of income single) and No Tax on Overtime (up to $12,500 for taxpayers making up to $150,000 single income) and an increase in the limit on deducting state and local incomes taxes from $10,000 to $40,000 phasing out on incomes above $250,000 single/$500,000 joint.

Despite what Democrats have claimed, you can see that the tax benefits in the bill are heavily skewed to higher middle and middle incomes rather than the rich.

2. I have stated many times in these pages that Donald Trump would never have been elected President in 2016 (or re-elected in 2024) without his strong positions on illegal immigration.

Despite attempts by the mainstream media and Democrats to attempt to demonize the mass deportation of illegal immigrants the Trump policy enjoys strong popular support in almost every poll.

It should come as no surprise that the Big Beautiful Bill contains major increases in federal funding for completion of a border wall as well as for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Annual funding for ICE is going to be tripled along with funding for the border wall and expanded detention center capacity.

3. The new law establishes special "Trump Savings Accounts" for any U.S. citizen born in 2025 through 2028. The federal government would deposit $1,000 into these accounts. The money would be invested in a tax-advantaged savings account that would be invested in diversified fund that tracks the U.S. stock index.

Parents and other can contribute up to an additional $5,000 per year and employers could deposit up to an $2,500 per year (included in the $5,000 annual limit) without it being considered income to the recipient.

No withdrawals would be permitted until the age of 18 when 50% could be withdrawn. Unlimited full withdrawals would be restricted until age 30.

4. Colleges and universities are going to have to adopt to a new environment in which they will not get the same benefits from the federal government they have in the past.

Student loans for graduate students (who account for more than half of the total outstanding amount of student loan debt) will be limited in the future.

There will now be a $100,000 lifetime limit for graduate school student loan debt and $200,000 for law and medical student debt.

There is also a new $65,000 lifetime limit for Parent Plus loans that parents can use to support their dependent undergraduate students.

The new law also levies a tax on university endowments based on a tiered schedule depending on the size of the endowment per student. Endowments will not be able to grow and compound tax-free as they have in the past.

Universities with endowments of $2 million or more per student will pay an annual tax of 8 percent on their investment income.

Nine U.S. universities qualify for the highest tax rate; Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, Stanford, Cal Tech, Juilliard, Amherst and Pomona.

This new tax will cost Harvard alone an estimated $200 million per year based on endowment income of $2.5 billion on its $53 billion endowment fund. 

Universities with endowments of between $750,000 and $2 million per student will pay a tax on investment income of 4 percent.

This tier includes schools such as Duke, Notre Dame, Columbia and Northwestern.

The tax on endowments will phase down to 1.4% for schools for all other schools with at least 500 students.

 

5. Medicaid funding is being restricted to those who have a demonstrated need (disabled, aged, women with dependent children) and disallowing those who are able-bodied to be in the program for long term periods. This was also the rule established during the Clinton era that was later rescinded during Covid. 

The BBB also will deny matching funds and reimbursements for states like California which allow illegal immigrants to enroll for Medicaid. Medicaid is principally administered by the states. Those states that want to continue covering illegals will need to fund those dollars themselves.

The Democrats have attempted to develop a narrative about how "unfair" the Medicaid cuts are. However, Medicaid and other health programs have become the second largest item in the federal budget consuming almost $1 trillion per year as the chart below shows. Continued funding of those who are able-bodied and covering illegals threatens the benefits of those who the program was originally designed for.

Planned Parenthood will face a one year cut to all its Medicaid funding. This was originally set to be a 10-year funding cut but the Byrd rule determined that after the first year funding cut this amounted to a policy change requiring a 60 vote margin to pass.

As it is, Planned Parenthood is scheduled to lose about half of its funding (almost $800 million) over the next year.. As a result, Planned Parenthood claims it may have to close up to 200 of its locations.

Of course, Planned Parenthood could instead ask the considerable number of uber-wealthy pro-choice liberals to put their money where there mouth is and and make up the funding shortfall. 

This legislation comes on the heels of the U.S. Supreme Court deciding the week before that states had the right to not make any Medicaid payments to Planned Parenthood.

It has been a bad couple of weeks for Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry.

It has been several great weeks for President Trump.

The passage and signing of the BBB into law almost completely satisfies the major promises that Trump made in his 2024 campaign for President.

He also accomplished all of it in less than six months in office.

What is most remarkable is that he did it with such slim majorities in both the House and Senate.

What is even more remarkable is that Trump has completely reshaped the Republican party in the decade since he entered politics.

Eight years ago he struggled to get half of Republican officeholders to support his agenda.

Trump's power with Republican voters is now so strong that only those who are willing to retire from politics or those who are willing to face a vicious and expensive  GOP primary have the courage to vote against him.

A recent poll also showed that Trump would defeat Kamala Harris by a larger margin today than he did last November.

Take into account that this survey was also done before the passage of the BBB. Trump might actually poll better in the after-glow of his BBB success. 

Than again, perhaps it is because of polls like this that Trump was able to keep almost all the Republicans together to get this legislative victory.

American Pride

It seems that over the last few years an increasing numbers of Americans have been more interested in celebrating June as Pride Month than celebrating July 4th to show pride in their country.

This observation is supported by a survey that indicates those who say they are proud to be an American has dropped significantly over the last 25 years.

87% of all Americans said they were extremely/very proud to be an American in 2001.

That number is now down to 58%.

You can trace some of this deterioration in American pride to Donald Trump's election in 2016.

However, the trend had been in motion much earlier than that.

The reality is that all of the erosion between 2001 and 2025 on pride in being an American has been  among Democrat voters with some assistance from Independents.

90% of Republicans stated that they were extremely/very  proud to be an American in 2001.

That number is now 92%

It was over 90% during the Obama years and even well over 80% during the Biden years.

When it comes to pride in being an American, Republicans are red, white and blue through and through.

On the other hand, the numbers of Democrats who say they are extremely/very proud to be American has dropped from 87% in 2001 to 36% today.

Why do we see the scorn we do about the United States of America from Democrats in particular?

A big reason for this seems to be that younger people in particular have negative views about America due to our liberal education system that spends more time maligning the United States and its Founders than extolling its virtues.

The education establishment loves to push the narrative to their students that everything about the United States is illegitimate in that it was founded by a bunch of rich, white men who created a system based on slavery and were primarily concerned with protecting their own self interests.

Of course, this narrative fails to mention that our Founders were generally the elite in the American colonies. The British system had worked out well for their self interests. They were "the 1%" in that day and age.

By declaring independence from the British, they put all that they had at risk--their lives, their livelihoods, and their riches---for independence and freedom for all.

As Benjamin Franklin put it so aptly to the other Founders right after they put their names on the Declaration of Independence.

Why did they do it?

They valued freedom and independence for themselves and their fellow Americans more than their own self-interests.

How many would do the same today?

The United States founding is also maligned and students are taught that the country is evil because it was established on a foundation of slavery.

The narrative that many Leftists believe today is that the United States of America is inherently flawed and evil because slavery was not explicitly forbidden in its founding documents. The argument follows that all of the Founders, at a minimum, were complicit in supporting the institution of slavery and that everything that follows is forever tainted and illegitimate.

I find it amusing that the primary thing that progressives seem to have that supports their view that the country is inherently flawed is to cite things from 250 years ago. I guess none of the good that the country did over the next 250 years counts? 

Being the first country in the world to provide power to the people to govern themselves. Providing the highest standard of living to people in the history of the world. Confronting and defeating the axis of evil (Germany and Japan) in WWII. Rebuilding those countries and returning those countries to the citizens after they had been defeated. When has that ever been done in the history of mankind?

It should also be remembered that our Founders inherited the slave system from the British. It was not an invention by our Founders. In fact, a little known fact is that in the first draft of the Declaration of Independence Thomas Jefferson included a provision that attacked slavery and the King's actions in "suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce."

This passage was deleted in the final Declaration that was approved but I think it pretty clearly shows that Jefferson was not aiding in "the construction of institutionalized racism and subjugation of racism" as has been alleged by Leftists.  He was actually attempting to deconstruct it.

Yes, some of the Founders owned slaves but most of those were inherited. Most of our Founders wanted to curtail and find a way out of slavery. That is one of the main reasons that slaves were only counted as 3/5 in census calculations for the number of reps each state got in Congress. It was done to limit the influence of the slave states so they could not expand the practice. It was done to put pressure on those states to end the practice. Notice it did not apply to free black citizens. They were fully counted. It only applied to slaves. It was a penalty. 

Why did Jefferson and the other Founding Fathers accede to removing this language in the Declaration of Independence? Quite simply, if they were to be successful in breaking away from Great Britain, and gaining independence, all 13 colonies had to be totally united. If not, as Franklin said, they all might hang separately.

The larger goal of independence from Great Britain took precedence as it was not possible to move forward without all colonies being united on the issue of slavery. Several southern colonies simply would not sign on to the Declaration of Independence with that passage in it. The Founders wanted freedom from Great Britain. They were not going to achieve that goal by dividing the colonies at the outset.

We saw that same thing on the vote on the Big Beautiful Bill in the Senate and House over the last week. There were many issues that individual Republicans did not like in the bill. However, the Republicans knew they had to deliver on the bigger goal of supporting the Trump agenda failing the Republicans were elected on last year. Failing in passing that bill and maintaining the status quo was not an option.

Passing that bill with the slim majorities that Republicans had in both Houses is the greatest political achievement I have witnessed in my lifetime. It simply could not have been done without the leadership of Donald J. Trump.

Tough compromises are necessary on tough issues. Moving forward allows for a fight for another day. That was the case with the Big Beautiful Bill.

It was also why compromises had to even be made with the Declaration of Independence. The issue of eliminating slavery would have to wait for another day.  Retaining the status quo accomplished nothing for the cause of freedom in the 1770's---for anyone---colonists or slaves. 

Jefferson was later instrumental in making sure there was a ban on slavery in the Northwest Ordinance in 1787 and it was Jefferson who as President initiated the legislation that banned the importation of any more slaves.

Were the Founders perfect? No.

Did they create a perfect United States of America? No.

However, they made it a whole lot better than it was. They also established a foundation of freedom that endures today. Should that not account for a fair and balanced view of the contributions of Jefferson, Washington and others who founded the United States at great risk and cost to themselves?

The framework they established also provided a model that has provided rights and freedom for billions of other people on this earth that was unheard of before these men made that Declaration of Independence in 1776. 

Our Founders were not inherently flawed. They devised a system of government that has survived longer than anything in existence in the world today. Think about it. UK, France, Germany,  China. Russia, Japan are all operating under a different governing system than they were 200 years ago. The USA has endured. These men were flawed? No, they were geniuses.

Today is the day to celebrate their contributions.

It is also a day to be proud to be an American

God Bless the USA!

Who Decides What Is Fair?

The new Democrat nominee for Mayor of New York City Zohran Mamdani wants to solve the "equality" problem he sees by providing free public transit, child care and operating city-owned groceries while increasing taxes on "the rich" to pay for it.

In fact, he does not think that billionaires have a right to exist.

Link: https://x.com/DefiantLs/status/1939668780923187575

At the same time, Democrats in the U.S. Congress are decrying the extension of the Trump tax cuts in the Big Beautiful Bill claiming that "the rich" are not paying their fair share.

Who decides what is fair?

Let's look at the IRS statistics for the 2021 tax year (the most recent year of data) to put this issue in context.

The top 1% of income earners pay 46% of the income tax burden.

The top 5% pay 66%.

Both groups pay significantly more than their share of income.

The top 1% account for 26% of all the income earned but they pay 46% of the tax paid.

Everyone other group below the top 5% pays less than their share of income earned.

Source: IRS Statistics on Income-2021

The top 0.1% actually pays 25% of the income tax burden just by themselves.

Incredibly, the top 0.1% pay more in income taxes than the entire bottom 90%----25.3% of total tax collections vs. 22.5% for the bottom 90%.

Credit: https://x.com/fentasyl/status/1935811712286134350

One of the reasons for this is by the increasing use of income tax credits (child care, etc)  for those in lower income brackets some of which are refundable even if there is no liability for income tax.

Many Americans no longer pay any income tax----they actually get tax refunds even though they owe no taxes at all.

Refundable tax credits totaled almost $150 billion in 2021.

You could almost call this IRS Welfare.

Credit: https://x.com/fentasyl/status/1936084531108302889

The share of total income tax that the top 1% is paying has also gone up over time.

In fact, it was after the Trump tax cuts that took effect in 2018 that it increased most dramatically.

Keep this in mind as you hear the narrative that Trump massively cut the tax burden of "the rich".

It was the middle class that received the most benefits from the Trump tax cuts that is also apparent by looking at this graphic.

The centerpiece of the Big, Beautiful Bill that is before Congress right now involves the extension of the Trump tax cuts.

They currently expire at the end of this year.

Democrats argue that the BBB will add enormous amounts to the deficit.

However, that is only true if you assume the Trump tax cuts will expire and everyone's taxes go up next year.

If the BBB is not passed, taxes will go up by over $4 trillion over the next 10 years compared to where we are today.

Conversely, the reality is that the BBB will actually reduce the projected budget deficits by about $500 billion in the next 10 years compared to current projections. 

This is roughly estimated as about $1 trillion in spending restraint offset by $500 billion in costs for the new tax breaks in the bill for no tax on tips, overtime and the new senior citizen tax deduction.

The spending restraint is largely focused on Medicaid reforms that were once considered mainstream policies---illegal immigrants should not get Medicaid benefits nor should able-bodied people who are able to work.

Let's put all of this in further context.

It is currently projected that the federal government will spend $87 trillion over the next 10 years based on the provisions of current law.

$1 trillion in spending restraint on $87 billion in spending is about a 1.1% decrease in total federal spending over the next 10 years compared to projections.

It should also be kept in mind that the federal government is looking at $2 trillion annual deficits for as far as the eye can see based on current law and policies.

The bottom line is that no one wants their taxes go up.

And anyone receiving federal dollars does not want those dollars to be reduced.

For example, here is one of the New York 1% asking why she doesn't get her money back for the health insurance she pays if she doesn't go to the hospital in a whole year.

Based on that logic, I could also ask why I did not get my money back on my home and auto insurance because my house did not burn down and I did not wreck my car for a whole year.

Whoopi Goldberg is a woman who has a platform she uses every day to promote liberal and socialist policies who obviously does not have the slightest idea about how the most basic social model works.

Link: https://x.com/ThomasSowell/status/1939350647431970950

Who decides what is fair?

That is an eternal question.

And fairness seems to always be decided in the eye of the beholder.

Enjoy the fantasy while it lasts.

However, there is absolutely no political will to do what is necessary right now.

Elon Musk did a great service with his DOGE efforts but when the most basic examples of fraud, waste and abuse cannot get majority support in Congress it is time to move on.

At some point reality will force some very tough questions on the political class.

 

And when that day comes the solutions will not be fair to anybody.