Most of us are happy when we find a 10-dollar bill that we had forgotten in a pants or coat pocket, but you could be one of the estimated two million people that have mature unclaimed savings bonds floating around, or you could have a 401k plan that you have forgot about.
You might have got a savings bond or two when you graduated or as birthday gifts but you’ve put them away and forgot about them or lost track of them. By now, they could be matured and ready to cash in; if the bonds have matured they are no longer earning interest for you, just sitting there. In fact, they could be losing value do to inflation and penalties. You can check to see if you have any overlooked bonds waiting for you to cash them in at the treasury’s website,
www.TreasuryDirect.gov. Once at the website, on the left side there will be a section marked “Individuals”, click the enter box. On the next page, find the “Treasury Hunt” link, read the next page and click “start search” when you are ready to start your search. Then you will be asked to enter your Social Security Number, and then wait for the search results. Written inquiries can be sent to, Bureau of the Public Debt Po Box 7015 Parkersburg WV 26106.
Some people think that they can avoid paying the federal interest tax by letting it sit after its mature date. However, the interest tax is assessed on the year that the bonds mature, not the day they’re cashed in. In addition, there is daily-compounded interest added to the taxes. This starts the day of the bonds maturity. All of these fees are deducted when you cash in the bonds, so when they have matured the sooner you redeem them the better.
Most people I know that have set up a 401k plan, when they started a job, have never dealt with them after the initial setting up, and some people forget about their 401k when they change jobs or change their name due to marriage, even moving to a new state without leaving a forwarding address. This makes it hard for employers or financial institutes to find you and remind you of your benefits. As a result of people forgetting their 401k’ s and stuff the government estimates that nearly 37,000 people are owed some sort of benefits. Most of them unaware that they even earned benefits in the first place. Another problem people run into is your former employer may have merged with another company, or was dissolved. Because of this, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 was put into place and a federal corporation known as the PBGC was created to protect the pensions of the more forty-four million workers and retirees that depend on their pensions to live. The average unclaimed account has a balance of $5,300.00 but it could be as low as $1.09.
Another place you can check to see if you have any forgotten pensions is the National Registry of Unclaimed retirement Benefits (NRURB). So get your Social Security number out and those of your retiree-aged parents to see if you have any forgotten benefits waiting to be claimed.
