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State Seeks to Return $11.5 Million In Unclaimed Property

Names of Persons with Unclaimed Property to Be Published Statewide in Newspapers This Week

June 04, 1999

BATON ROUGE - Do you have a hidden treasure? Department of Revenue Secretary Brett Crawford announced today that within the next two weeks, the names of 33,500 people
who are eligible to claim more than $11.5 million in Unclaimed Property that was turned
over to the state during the past year will be published in the legal notices section of
newspapers throughout Louisiana. For the major metropolitan daily papers, the publication
dates are June 10 and 17. State statutes require that the names of unclaimed property
owners be published in a newspaper of general circulation in the parish of the owner''s
last known address.

Under Louisiana''s Unclaimed Property Law, the Louisiana Department of Revenue is
responsible for finding owners of unclaimed intangible personal property turned over to
the state. This Unclaimed Property may include payroll checks, bank accounts, royalties,
utility deposits, interest, stock certificates, and life insurance proceeds.

"With the support of the governor and the state legislators, the Department has
already returned more than $22 million of unclaimed property to its rightful owners since
the beginning of the Foster Administration in January, 1996," Crawford says. He adds
that the state does not charge a fee for returning an owner''s property. "It''s our job
to find the rightful owners and we are delighted to return someone''s hard-earned money to
them. The Department expects taxpayers to pay their taxes on time, so the least they can
expect is for us to try to return what is rightfully theirs on time."

There is no expiration date for making a claim for unclaimed property, but Crawford
points out that proof of ownership must be submitted before the funds will be released.
Information about the description of the unclaimed property, the company that remitted it
to the state, and how to prove ownership may be obtained by contacting the Unclaimed
Property Section of the Department toll-free at 1-888-925-4127 Monday through Friday from
8:00 A.M. to 4:30 P.M. Information may also be obtained by writing to the Louisiana
Department of Revenue, Unclaimed Property Section, P.O. Box 91010, Baton Rouge, LA
70821-9010.

For more information or to perform a complete search of the Department''s Unclaimed
Property database that contains more than 300,000 names and $150 million in unclaimed
property, visit the Department''s Internet Web Site at http://www.treasury.state.la.us.