On 2024-04-09 09:50, R Losey wrote: > Legally, are you saying that if I write a check for $50 and send it to my > uncle, it's "paid" whether or not he ever cashes it?
In the United States, yes. If you owe someone a debt and send them a check but they don't cash it, you have still paid them, just as if you sent them cash and they stuffed it in the mattress. The payment is theirs when they receive it, but what they do with it doesn't affect the fact that your debt is discharged. (I don't know the legal position if it's lost in the mail and they don't contact you.) This comes up in the tax treatment of items paid for around Dec 31st. I made a mortgage payment on Dec 28th one year, and the bank didn't credit it till Jan 4th or thereabouts. It seems likely they received it on the 2nd or 3rd, not in December. The interest portion was still deductible by me in the year I sent it, not the year they received it. I attached a statement to my return to explain why I was claiming more interest than their statement showed, then did the same thing the following year to explain why my claim was less than their statement showed. There _is_ a concept of a "stale check"; see <https://www.bankrate.com/banking/checking/how-long-is-a-check-good-for/> I don't know the legal position if the payee could have cashed the check but for no compelling reason waited to do so until it became stale. Are you obliged to write a new check to replace the stale one, or is it the payee's tough luck? Stan Brown Tehachapi, CA, USA https://BrownMath.com _______________________________________________ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user ----- Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
