Australia Seizes 360M From Dormant Bank Accounts And All 50 U.S. States Are Doing This TooMichael Snyder For example, as you will read about below, just last year the government of Australia seized a whopping 360 million dollars from dormant bank accounts. And this kind of thing is going on all over America as well. In fact,all 50 states actually pay private contractors to locate bank accounts and unclaimed property that can be seized. In some states, no effort will be made to contact you when your property is confiscated. And in most states, the seized property permanently become the property of the state government after a certain waiting period has elapsed. So please dont put money or property into a bank somewhere and just let it sit there. If you do, the government may come along and grab it right out from under your nose. In this day and age, broke governments all over the globe are searching for creative ways to raise revenues. InAustralia for example, the time period required before the federal government could seize a dormant bank account was reduced from seven to three years, and this resulted in an unprecedented windfall for the Australian government over the past 12 months Figures from the Australian Security and Investments Commission (ASIC) show almost $360 million was collected from 80,000 inactive accounts in the year to May under new rules introduced by Labor. The new rules lowered the threshold at which the government is allowed to snatch funds from accounts that remain idle from seven years to three years. The rule change has delivered the government a massive bonanza with the money collected in the year to May more than the total collected in the past five decades combined. But did you know that this is happening all over the U.S. as well? For instance, the waiting period in the state of California used to be fifteen years. And when California grabs your money they dont just sit around waiting for you to come and claim it. Instead, it gets dumped directly into the general fund and spent. If you do not believe that California does this, just check out the following information that comes directly from the official website of the California State Controllers Office And it is not just bank accounts and safe deposit boxes that are covered by California law. The reality is that a vast array of different kinds of unclaimed property are covered And when a state government grabs your property, the consequences can be absolutely devastating. The following is an excerpt from an ABC news report from a few years ago And some states are even more aggressive than the state of California in going after bank accounts. As economic conditions get even worse, the temptation for governments all over the planet to grab private bank accounts is going to become even greater. We all remember what happened in Cyprus. When the global financial Ponzi scheme finally collapses, politicians all over the world are going to be looking for an easy way to raise cash. And our bank accounts may be one of the first things that they decide to confiscate. So please dont keep all of your eggs in one basket, and check on all of your accounts in regular intervals. In this day and age, it pays to be diligent. This article first appeared here at the Economic Collapse Blog. Michael Snyder is a writer, speaker and activist who writes and edits his own blogs The American Dream and Economic Collapse Blog. Follow him on Twitter here. 