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Businesses Face Filing Deadlines for Unclaimed Property

DALLAS, April 12 /PRNewswire/ -- Deadlines for reporting unclaimed property held by businesses are approaching in Pennsylvania, Florida, Illinois, and Vermont. All 50 states have reporting requirements, and businesses are facing the increasing likelihood of single or multistate unclaimed property audits potentially costing companies millions of dollars.

"At Ryan, we see a new trend of states today aggressively focused on unclaimed property collections as a significant source of revenue," said Noel E. Hall, Jr., Ryan Principal and Practice Leader for the unclaimed and abandoned property service line. "Unclaimed property, which can amount to tens of billions of dollars, provides many states with the working capital that would otherwise have to be raised through taxes."

"Today, both the largest companies and also smaller companies are increasingly being targeted for aggressive collections efforts," said Hall. "Auditors are looking for un-cashed payroll checks, accounts payable checks, accounts receivable credit balances, unredeemed rebates and refunds, unused gift certificates or store value cards, credit memos, and customer overpayments." The newest and very contentious property types to reach the purview of the auditor's radar are un-invoiced inventory receipts or commonly termed "over goods" or GR/IR (for those operating on the SAP platform).

Contingency fee firms are often retained by states to conduct these audits. Statutes of limitations are often non-existent, and auditors may reach back to 1981 in the case of a Delaware domiciled company.

Ryan's dedicated Unclaimed Property practice provides a national resource for dealing with client issues in all 53 jurisdictions including audit defense, voluntary disclosure agreements, development of best practices, exposure quantification, and ongoing annual compliance services.

Public companies face additional responsibilities under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rules requiring sound accounting practices, which require proper accounting for unclaimed property liabilities.

Filing deadlines include: April 15 (Pennsylvania), April 30 (Florida), May 1 (Illinois) and (Vermont).

About Ryan

Ryan is the leading tax services firm in North America, with the largest transaction tax practice in the United States and Canada. Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, the Firm provides a comprehensive range of state, local, federal, and international tax advisory and consulting services on a multi-jurisdictional basis, including audit defense, tax recovery, credits and incentives, tax process improvement and automation, tax appeals, and strategic planning. With a multi-disciplinary team of more than 800 professionals and associates, Ryan serves many of the world's most prominent Fortune 1000 companies.

SOURCE Ryan