It's the same reason why companies give unlimited vacation or demote it into sick pay if you don't use it. Otherwise, people would accrue credit for years and y

It's the same reason why companies give unlimited vacation or demote it into sick pay if you don't use it. Otherwise, people would accrue credit for years and years, and there'd be millions of dollars on the books in liabilities. Similarly, if you write someone a check and they never cash it, it stays on your books as a liability. Your state government usually runs a service where they'll hold the cash for you and assume the liability. If you run through your old books and remember a check that you never cashed 60 years ago, you can sometimes find it from the government. Unless you're running a bank or insurance company whose entire purpose in life is managing liabilities, companies don't like leaving liabilities on the books for extended periods of time. It's a different story if you charged someone's credit card for the credits, because there's an asset to balance it out.