Business
How to uncover unclaimed money that may belong to you
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Strapped for cash during the COVID-19 pandemic due to the economic slowdown? You might have unclaimed money from your past that could help pay the bills — perhaps from a dormant bank account or a lost cheque.
Or maybe a rich relative died without a will and — unbeknownst to you — you’re entitled to their money. A $1.9 million inheritance is currently sitting idle in B.C., waiting for the next of kin to claim.
To find out if you’re a millionaire or if you have any other unclaimed funds, here are some free, simple ways to launch your treasure hunt.
Uncashed CRA cheques
The Canada Revenue Agency is sitting on about $1 billion from cheques for tax refunds and benefits that taxpayers never cashed.
In some cases, the recipient may have lost the cheque or neglected to tell the CRA that they had moved, so it was mailed to the wrong address.
In February, the CRA added a new online feature to help unite taxpayers with their uncashed cheques — which never expire.
After logging onto your CRA account online, click on the “uncashed cheques” link. That will prompt a list of any CRA cheques in your name that have remained uncashed for at least six months.
To claim your money, fill out a form provided online and send it to the agency.
The CRA reports that between Feb. 10 — when it launched the new feature — and the end of May, Canadians redeemed more than 260,000 uncashed cheques totalling $63.7 million.
Dave Hurley of Vancouver clicked on the “uncashed cheques” link in April and was surprised to discover he had a $88.50 cheque for a 2007 GST/HST credit.
He said he made a claim and the CRA deposited the money into his account about a month later.
“An extra 88 bucks was good — it was great to have,” said Hurley, who used the money to splurge on a high-end bottle of Scotch whisky.
“I felt I deserved it.”
Central bank has $888 million in unclaimed funds
The Bank of Canada can also help you locate forgotten cash. When federally regulated banks have unclaimed customer funds — such as bank deposits, GICs and money orders — they wind up at the Bank of Canada after a 10-year period.
The bank calls the forgotten money “unclaimed balances,” and you can search its online database to find out if any of it belongs to you. To stake a claim, you must fill out a claim form provided online and mail it to the bank with proof of ownership.
The Bank of Canada said it paid out $8.5 million last year to Canadians who submitted claims.
And it has plenty more to dole out. The bank reports it was sitting on $888 million in unclaimed balances at the close of 2019. Its single-largest holding totals more than $800,000.
Rightful owners have ample time to claim their cash. The bank will hold unclaimed balances of less than $1,000 for 30 years and amounts of $1,000 or more for 100 years.
Forgotten EI cheques
Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC), which oversees federal social programs, may also have cash for you. The government department reports that as of Sept. 30, 2019, it was sitting on $133 million from more than 300,000 cheques issued to Canadians that — for some reason — were never cashed.
The majority of the cheques belong to people who have at some point collected Canada Pension Plan, Employment Insurance or Old Age Security payments.
ESDC doesn’t have an online search tool, but you can call Service Canada if you believe you have a forgotten cheque. If it turns out you do and you’re able to validate your identity, the department will reissue the cheque.
Unclaimed property programs
If you have ever lived in B.C., Alberta or Quebec, you can dig for forgotten money by searching online databases provided by unclaimed property programs in each of the three provinces.
The programs collect funds from provincially regulated companies, organizations and financial institutions. Depending on the province, collected funds could include wages, insurance and pension fund payments, as well as accounts from credit unions.
All three programs collect unclaimed inheritances left by people who died and no rightful heir can be found.
WATCH | Personal finance experts offer advice to Canadians:
B.C., Alberta and Quebec‘s unclaimed property programs each have slightly different rules but share the same goal: to unite people with their long-lost money.
“You can’t believe what people forget [about] and for what dollars,” said Alena Levitz, executive director of the BC Unclaimed Property Society (BCUPS).
The BCUPS reports it returned $2,744,595 in unclaimed cash last year to verified owners. It currently has more than $164 million in its coffers waiting to be claimed.
The total includes that $1.9 million left by someone who died in B.C. without a will.
“Somebody was a good saver all their life and just didn’t have [close] family and unfortunately, probably didn’t think to do a will,” Levitz said. She couldn’t divulge more details about the case for privacy reasons.
BCUPS imposes no time limit to make a claim and has cash still waiting for its rightful owners dating back to the 1800s.
Levitz encourages other provinces to establish an unclaimed property program. Currently, residents of provinces without one must make inquiries to individual businesses and organizations to seek out forgotten cash.
“It should be easy for folks to find money that belongs to them,” she said.
New Brunswick has an unclaimed property program in the works.
Source:-cbc-ca
Tesla has promised to start selling cheaper models next year, days after a Reuters report revealed that the company had shelved its plans for an all-new Tesla that would cost only $25,000.
The news that Tesla was scrapping the Model 2 came amid a drop in sales and profits, and a decision to slash a tenth of the company’s global workforce. Reuters also noted increased competition from Chinese EV makers.
Tesla’s deliveries slumped in the first quarter for the first annual drop since the start of the pandemic in 2020, missing analyst forecasts by a mile in a sign that even price cuts haven’t been able to stave off an increasingly heated competition on the EV market.
Profits dropped by 50%, disappointing investors and leading to a slump in the company’s share prices, which made any good news urgently needed. Tesla delivered: it said it would bring forward the date for the release of new, lower-cost models. These would be produced on its existing platform and rolled out in the second half of 2025, per the BBC.
Reuters cited the company as warning that this change of plans could “result in achieving less cost reduction than previously expected,” however. This suggests the price tag of the new models is unlikely to be as small as the $25,000 promised for the Model 2.
The decision is based on a substantially reduced risk appetite in Tesla’s management, likely affected by the recent financial results and the intensifying competition with Chinese EV makers. Shelving the Model 2 and opting instead for cars to be produced on existing manufacturing lines is the safer move in these “uncertain times”, per the company.
Tesla is also cutting prices, as many other EV makers are doing amid a palpable decline in sales in key markets such as Europe, where the phaseout of subsidies has hit demand for EVs seriously. The cut is of about $2,000 on all models that Tesla currently sells.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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Divisions within the Bank of Canada over the timing of a much-anticipated cut to its key overnight interest rate stem from concerns of some members of the central bank’s governing council that progress on taming inflation could stall in the face of stronger domestic demand — or even pick up again in the event of “new surprises.”
“Some members emphasized that, with the economy performing well, the risk had diminished that restrictive monetary policy would slow the economy more than necessary to return inflation to target,” according to a summary of deliberations for the April 10 rate decision that were published Wednesday. “They felt more reassurance was needed to reduce the risk that the downward progress on core inflation would stall, and to avoid jeopardizing the progress made thus far.”
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Others argued that there were additional risks from keeping monetary policy too tight in light of progress already made to tame inflation, which had come down “significantly” across most goods and services.
Some pointed out that the distribution of inflation rates across components of the consumer price index had approached normal, despite outsized price increases and decreases in certain components.
“Coupled with indicators that the economy was in excess supply and with a base case projection showing the output gap starting to close only next year, they felt there was a risk of keeping monetary policy more restrictive than needed.”
In the end, though, the central bankers agreed to hold the rate at five per cent because inflation remained too high and there were still upside risks to the outlook, albeit “less acute” than in the past couple of years.
Despite the “diversity of views” about when conditions will warrant cutting the interest rate, central bank officials agreed that monetary policy easing would probably be gradual, given risks to the outlook and the slow path for returning inflation to target, according to the summary of deliberations.
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They considered a number of potential risks to the outlook for economic growth and inflation, including housing and immigration, according to summary of deliberations.
The central bankers discussed the risk that housing market activity could accelerate and further boost shelter prices and acknowledged that easing monetary policy could increase the likelihood of this risk materializing. They concluded that their focus on measures such as CPI-trim, which strips out extreme movements in price changes, allowed them to effectively look through mortgage interest costs while capturing other shelter prices such as rent that are more reflective of supply and demand in housing.
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They also agreed to keep a close eye on immigration in the coming quarters due to uncertainty around recent announcements by the federal government.
“The projection incorporated continued strong population growth in the first half of 2024 followed by much softer growth, in line with the federal government’s target for reducing the share of non-permanent residents,” the summary said. “But details of how these plans will be implemented had not been announced. Governing council recognized that there was some uncertainty about future population growth and agreed it would be important to update the population forecast each quarter.”
• Email: bshecter@nationalpost.com
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Shares in US tech giant Meta have sunk in US after-hours trading despite better-than-expected earnings.
The Facebook and Instagram owner said expenses would be higher this year as it spends heavily on artificial intelligence (AI).
Its shares fell more than 15% after it said it expected to spend billions of dollars more than it had previously predicted in 2024.
Meta has been updating its ad-buying products with AI tools to boost earnings growth.
It has also been introducing more AI features on its social media platforms such as chat assistants.
The firm said it now expected to spend between $35bn and $40bn, (£28bn-32bn) in 2024, up from an earlier prediction of $30-$37bn.
Its shares fell despite it beating expectations on its earnings.
First quarter revenue rose 27% to $36.46bn, while analysts had expected earnings of $36.16bn.
Sophie Lund-Yates, lead equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said its spending plans were “aggressive”.
She said Meta’s “substantial investment” in AI has helped it get people to spend time on its platforms, so advertisers are willing to spend more money “in a time when digital advertising uncertainty remains rife”.
More than 50 countries are due to have elections this year, she said, “which hugely increases uncertainty” and can spook advertisers.
She added that Meta’s “fortunes are probably also being bolstered by TikTok’s uncertain future in the US”.
Meta’s rival has said it will fight an “unconstitutional” law that could result in TikTok being sold or banned in the US.
President Biden has signed into law a bill which gives the social media platform’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, nine months to sell off the app or it will be blocked in the US.
Ms Lund-Yates said that “looking further ahead, the biggest risk [for Meta] remains regulatory”.
Last year, Meta was fined €1.2bn (£1bn) by Ireland’s data authorities for mishandling people’s data when transferring it between Europe and the US.
And in February of this year, Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg faced blistering criticism from US lawmakers and was pushed to apologise to families of victims of child sexual exploitation.
Ms Lund-Yates added that the firm has “more than enough resources to throw at legal challenges, but that doesn’t rule out the risks of ups and downs in market sentiment”.
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