UNCLAIMED PROPERTY REPORTING INSTRUCTIONS - …

1 2 019. UNCLAIMED . PROPERTY . REPORTING . INSTRUCTIONS . G LE N N H EG A R. Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts UNCLAIMED . PROPERTY . REPORTING . INSTRUCTIONS . i UNCLAIMED PROPERTY REPORTING INSTRUCTIONS Table of Contents CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO HOLDER REPORTING CHAPTER 3: PROPERTY -SPECIFIC REPORTING . What is UNCLAIMED PROPERTY ?.. 1 Crime Victims 11. Types of UNCLAIMED 1 Electric 12. What is a Holder?.. 2 Escrow Funds Reported by Title 13. What Are My Responsibilities as a Holder?.. 2 Financial What You Need to File Your 2 Insurance-Related REPORTING 2 Local 24. How Does the REPORTING Process Work? .. 3 Mineral 24. Mutual Fund Shares, Distributions and 25. Securities or Securities-Related CHAPTER 2: FILING YOUR REPORT. Determining 5. Notifying PROPERTY 6 CHAPTER 4: REFERENCE TABLES. Other Methods of Verifying Whereabouts PROPERTY Type Codes and Abandonment of 6 Relationship Preparing Your 7 Suggested Submitting Your Report and 7 PROPERTY Description 36.

2 Archiving 9 Securities Delivery Country Summary of PROPERTY Types and Dormancy County Codes To be used for REPORTING mineral Helpful UNCLAIMED PROPERTY REPORTING INSTRUCTIONS ii iii UNCLAIMED PROPERTY REPORTING INSTRUCTIONS Introduction to Holder REPORTING CHAPTER 1. CHAPTER 1. Introduction to Holder REPORTING What is UNCLAIMED PROPERTY ? UNCLAIMED PROPERTY can be any financial asset that has been abandoned by the owner for periods ranging from one to 15 years. The abandonment period is the number of years that the PROPERTY is held before being sent to the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts (Comptroller's office). The PROPERTY type determines the length of the abandonment period. Title 6 of the Texas PROPERTY Code governs the state of Texas UNCLAIMED PROPERTY Program. Chapters 72. through 77 apply to the REPORTING , delivery and claims processes for abandoned PROPERTY .

3 Chapter 76 applies only to UNCLAIMED PROPERTY held and reported by Texas counties, municipalities, independent school districts and Common Types of UNCLAIMED PROPERTY junior colleges. Chapter 77 applies only to UNCLAIMED crime victims restitution payments held and reported by county Abandonment probation departments. PROPERTY Type: Period (Years). Payroll 1. Types of UNCLAIMED PROPERTY Utility deposits 1. UNCLAIMED PROPERTY is classified into different PROPERTY Demutualization proceeds 1. types with different abandonment periods. All properties Uncashed dividend or cashier's checks 3. listed on your report must be assigned the correct Stocks, bonds, mutual fund accounts 3. PROPERTY type codes. Your choice of codes is important Stored value cards (gift cards) 3. because it determines what type of information is required of claimants.

4 Bank accounts and matured certificates 3. of deposit PROPERTY Type Codes and PROPERTY Descriptions Insurance proceeds 3. When you are ready to prepare your report, select the Mineral interests or royalty payments 3. PROPERTY type code from Chapter 4: Reference Tables, Court deposits, trust funds, escrow accounts 3. PROPERTY Type Codes and Abandonment Periods section that best describes the original PROPERTY of the owner. Use the Money orders 3. miscellaneous outstanding check code (MS16) only as a Safe deposit box contents 5. last resort when the nature of the uncashed check is truly Traveler's checks 15. unknown. Refer to the table entitled PROPERTY Description Field Requirements for the specific information required in the description field for each PROPERTY type. UNCLAIMED PROPERTY REPORTING INSTRUCTIONS 1.

5 CHAPTER 1 Introduction to Holder REPORTING What is a Holder? What You Need to File Your Report A holder is any business in possession of PROPERTY Report Overview belonging to an individual or business. There are five basic steps to follow when REPORTING any Holders may include: type of PROPERTY : Mortgage and title companies 1. Determining dormancy Insurance companies 2. Notifying PROPERTY owners Oil and gas companies 3. Preparing your report Securities brokers 4. Submitting report and payment Utility providers Local government entities 5. Archiving data Institutions of higher education REPORTING Format What Are My Responsibilities as a Holder? Your report must be in the electronic REPORTING format developed by the NAUPA. The report can be created by Businesses (holders) who, on March 1, hold PROPERTY using any commercially available REPORTING software that that is presumed abandoned are required to file a report generates the file in the NAUPA format.

6 Of that PROPERTY on or before the following July 1. The Comptroller's office requires the report to be in the For reports with a few properties, the UNCLAIMED PROPERTY electronic format developed by the National Association Division offers Manual Online REPORTING (MOR). of UNCLAIMED PROPERTY Administrators (NAUPA). MOR can be located at , select enter a manual report under the REPORTING PROPERTY tab. Organizations that have determined they are not holding Source: Texas Administrative Code, Title 34, Section 13-21. abandoned PROPERTY are not required to file a negative report. A negative report is a zero report showing that a business did Important Due Dates not have PROPERTY to report for that year. Exception: county and probation departments will still Deadlines need to file a negative report for crime victims restitution March 1 annual cutoff date for required payments.

7 (See page 11) abandonment periods. The due date for UNCLAIMED PROPERTY REPORTING is June 30 annual cutoff date for life insurance. July 1 of each year. We recommend a list of customers July 1 deadline for filing your report and with whom no contact has been reestablished be relayed remitting your PROPERTY . PROPERTY may to the person responsible for preparing your institution's be remitted any time after the March report by June 1 (or whenever an internal deadline is annual cutoff date. set). All the information that you can provide for each Nov. 1 deadline for filing life insurance reports customer will assist in verifying ownership when a claim and remitting PROPERTY . is generated. UNCLAIMED PROPERTY should not be reported until it Source: Texas PROPERTY Code, Section has reached the end of the abandonment period.

8 If the due date falls on a weekend or holiday, the due date will be the following business day. Source: Texas PROPERTY Code, Section 2 UNCLAIMED PROPERTY REPORTING INSTRUCTIONS Introduction to Holder REPORTING CHAPTER 1. How Does the REPORTING Process Work? 1 2 3. DETERMINING NOTIFYING PREPARING. DORMANCY PROPERTY YOUR REPORT. Unable to locate the OWNERS By May 1, due owner. A business Review records by diligence notices is holding funds March 1 to determine are mailed, alerting that are owed to if contact was made owner that their an employee, with owner after UNCLAIMED PROPERTY client, vendor or abandonment period. will be reported. customer. 5 4. ARCHIVING SUBMITTING. DATA REPORT AND. Businesses are PAYMENT. required to keep If owner is not found information after due diligence, relating to reported PROPERTY must be UNCLAIMED PROPERTY included in the July 1.

9 For 10 years. report to the state. UNCLAIMED PROPERTY REPORTING INSTRUCTIONS 3. 4 UNCLAIMED PROPERTY REPORTING INSTRUCTIONS Filing Your Report CHAPTER 2. CHAPTER 2. Filing Your Report Determining Dormancy Example of Dormancy The first step in the UNCLAIMED PROPERTY REPORTING Alpha Optical has the following accounts payable process is to identify dormant accounts. For each checks: customer account or outstanding amount owed to a person, you will need to determine the date of last Beta Cleaning Company $ , check dated 12/31/2015, last date of contact 11/30/2015. They contact. To do so: no longer handle your janitorial cleaning services. Locate the last documented communication Charlie's Coffee Company $ , check with the owner dated 12/31/2016, last date of contact was Determine if the PROPERTY is abandoned last week.

10 Then identify accounts where the date of last contact falls Accounts payable checks have a three-year dormancy outside the abandonment period for that PROPERTY type. period. Look at the last contact date for each of your outstanding checks to determine if they have met the When reviewing your records for abandoned PROPERTY , three-year dormancy period and if you should report look for the last documented communication or the last them in your 2019 UNCLAIMED PROPERTY report. debit or credit generated by the owner on any PROPERTY , not merely the PROPERTY that is inactive. Beta Cleaning Company last contact date was 11/30/2015 and the date of the check is Contact with the owner may be established by mail, 12/31/2015. Last date of contact date of 11/30/15. email, accessing an online account, in person or by (plus 3 years 11/30/18) falls between the phone.