ATLANTA — Hundreds of thousands of Georgians could be getting checks in the mail if a bill that passed unanimously in the State Senate this week becomes law.
The proposed change to Georgia’s unclaimed property system would change state law to require the Department of Revenue to proactively match tax records with unclaimed property records and send checks to people for properties under $500 without the property owners filling out requests or searching themselves.
“That’s other people’s money, not the state’s money. So as legislators, we have an obligation to be sure that people get their property back if it’s in the state hands,” State Senator Kay Kirkpatrick told Channel 2 Consumer Investigator Justin Gray.
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Kirkpatrick is the sponsor of the bill that passed the Senate 50 to 0 and also has the support of Governor Brian Kemp.
“What it’s going to do is make it much easier for people to know that they have unclaimed property by matching it with the tax records and making the process much more streamlined and automated and less of a hassle,” Kirkpatrick said.
In 2024, the Department of Revenue made it easier for Georgians to search for unclaimed property in response to a Channel 2 Action News Investigation. In Georgia, you could not search for claims under $50.
After Channel 2 Action News started asking questions, the website was changed to allow searches for unclaimed money under $50 and even under $5.
Georgia has $3.3 billion in unclaimed property.
Ron Lizzi is an unclaimed property watchdog who has been pushing Georgia and other states to make just the kind of change the proposed legislation offers.
“They should be able to return tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions, automatically without making people jump through hoops,” Lizzi said.
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But the proposed bill would also allow the state to take money that goes unclaimed. Any unclaimed money after 25 years would go to the state. Small dollar amounts under $10 would become state property after just 5 years.
“That could be hundreds of millions of dollars, and that’s theft,” Lizzi said. “It’s the state’s job to tell people about this program and return the money. They’re doing a lousy job of informing people, and they would now be benefiting from that,” he continued.
We asked Senator Kirkpatrick why the provision allows the state to take ownership of older unclaimed funds.
“Eventually it just becomes a liability on the state’s books, and after 25 years, particularly when there’s been time to implement this new bill, that seemed like a reasonable place to go,” she said.
The bill still needs to pass the House. If passed, Kirkpatrick says it would take the state time to get the two different computer systems working together.
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