Unclaimed Property:
US Supreme Court Holds that Money Transfer Company’s Checks are Sufficiently Similar to Money Orders
Case No. 22O145, US (2/28/23). In a high-profile case involving Delaware’s unclaimed property priority laws for reporting a money transfer company’s “official checks” that do not have an address (i.e., its agent checks and teller’s checks), the US Supreme Court held for the regime’s challengers that such instruments are sufficiently “similar” to a money order to fit within the “other similar written instrument” category of the federal 1974 Disposition of Abandoned Money Orders and Traveler’s Checks Act. Accordingly, the official checks at issue fall under a “place-of-purchase” escheatment rule that distributes escheats as a matter of equity among the states rather than cause a “windfall” to the state of incorporation (Delaware).
See forthcoming Multistate Tax Alert for more details on this important development, and please contact us with any questions in the meantime.
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