If you’re walking down the street and you find a quarter, you’d pick it up and keep it, right? (The police would think you insane if you reported a found quarter.) If it were a dollar, probably the same.
At what point is it legally manditory for you to report found money? If it’s never claimed and you keep it, do you have to report it on your taxes (technically, you didn’t “earn” it, you found it)? How much trouble would you get it if you found $50,000, never reported it missing nor as income?
Irs would probably classify it as a windfall , similar to finding buried tresure when the apple tree blows over. Depending on how much I’d turn in depends on the circumstances. In an elementary class room if I found a dollar i’d turn it in cause it’s prob some kids lunch money and come lunch time it is gonna be easy to tell who lost it. If I was in a supermarket and found a ten I might go to the desk and ask if anyone reported losing ANY money and how much. A twenty definately. On the street, I don’t know, maybe I need to call the cops and find out how much it costs them to keep the money for their time limit and just try to be cost efficient. if it was 50,000, well then it would depend on if a poor person lost it then I’d turn it in cause they really need it. A rich person like Gracie Allen was would never miss it anyway.
“Pardon me while I have a strange interlude.”-Marx
Ah, this question takes me back to property class in law school, with the prof with the monotone voice and the sounds of snoring throughout the room…
Technically, lost property according to the common law still belongs to its “true owner,” which is not you if you find it in the street, and you have no right to it. If you found something under the common law and you had no idea who it belonged to, you were supposed to turn it over to whoever owned the land where you found it, and that person was supposed to hold it for in anticipation of the true owner coming back for it.
Happily most towns these days allow instead for you to turn it over to the local police, who will hold it for a time for the “true owner.” In some places, after this variable amount of time passes, it goes to the finder, which would be you. In other places, the money would go to the government, and you don’t even get a finder’s fee.
In any case, if you get to put any of it in your own pocket, rest assured the IRS is going to want its piece of the action.
Of course, the first thing you should do if that happens is to go see your attorney
