Are You Overreporting?

October 22, 2012  Blog Post by Kathleen Moyer, Managing Partner – Compliance Services

In your haste to meet the state filing deadlines (October 31 and November 1 for the Fall due dates), are you at risk of over-reporting? Sometimes the push to meet the state deadlines can be hectic. However, taking the time to conduct a final review before the reports are finalized can save your company money and time. Money because you have avoided remitting funds that are not unclaimed, and time saved from not having to recover the funds from the states, should the need arise in future.

A final review of your unclaimed property report should consist of the following:

• Review high dollar amounts. Although that high dollar item may be unclaimed, it’s still worth a second look.
• Confirm that all items with a positive response from the due diligence letters have been removed from the report. You should remove all pending payments to owners.
• Identify potential duplicate payments. A common duplicate payment would be the same amount to the same owner on the same date.
• Identify items that are due to your company (i.e. intercompany transactions). This sounds like a no brainer, but we can assure you that companies do report funds due to themselves. Include all subsidiaries and alternate spellings of your company’s name in your review.
• Determine if all applicable state exemptions or exclusions have been removed from the report. This would include business to business (B2B) exemptions.
• Determine if the “advertising cost” allowed by states have been applied. Some states allow holders to deduct an “advertising cost” from each record listed on the report.

Conducting a final review before reporting and remitting the funds to the state is always worth the effort.