The I Bond Thread

[jldavid47]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nurseninja 9 percent for 6 months - win win. If I drops to 7 percent, still not bad.

Two things to remember: (1) You cannot redeem them for one year. (2) If you redeem them prior to holding for 5 years you lose the last three months of interest.

[Chuckanut]

Yes, I-Bonds are a great deal today and probably for at least a year.

But, if we do get very high interest rates (approaching or passing double digits), you can't lock them in with I-bonds because inflation may go down as the Fed tightens and our elected representatives show more bi-partisan fiscal responsibility. To lock in those rates you will need a Treasury Bill or CD that is not callable. You can buy them through a broker such as Schwab, Fidelity, Vanguard, etc.

[jldavid47]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chuckanut But, if we do get very high interest rates (approaching or passing double digits), you can't lock them in with I-bonds because inflation may go down as the Fed tightens and our elected representatives show more bi-partisan fiscal responsibility.

Now that's funny. If that actually happens I'm gonna dial up the Weather Channel to see if Hell has frozen over.

[Nurseninja]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jldavid47 Two things to remember: (1) You cannot redeem them for one year. (2) If you redeem them prior to holding for 5 years you lose the last three months of interest.

That’s fine, plan to hold till I retired , income around 180k and a bunch of stacked cash and real estate (1.4 million in real estate)

One further question - anybody Utilize the individual account and an LLC account at TD for a second 10k contribution. I have a well established company already. Would be nice if I could dump about 10k from the company. Any feedback or experience with that.

[beowulf]

Sorry if this has been answered already, but but looking through 896 posts appeared daunting. I have I bonds that go back to the early days of issuance when there was a guaranteed base rate. After that, it went to 0 and interest rates became low, I stopped buying them. I did my $10K for me and $10K for my wife with no problem. I was under the impression that we were limited to that amount. Is it possible for each of us to gift the other another $10K each? We have a trust, but it's a revocable joint trust, and I'm not sure about that either. Any ideas on how to increase the amount that can be purchased by a married couple? TYIA.

[Sunset]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nurseninja That’s fine, plan to hold till I retired , income around 180k and a bunch of stacked cash and real estate (1.4 million in real estate) One further question - anybody Utilize the individual account and an LLC account at TD for a second 10k contribution. I have a well established company already. Would be nice if I could dump about 10k from the company. Any feedback or experience with that.

Yes your company can buy $10K worth. TD does explain it.
You company will register itself, like a person does, only it's an entity account, and a company can't have a beneficiary as companies don't die. Also a company can't gift bonds.

I did it as a sole proprietor so I used my SSN for the company SSN/EIN and I used my bank account and it was all fine. I use my bank account for my sole proprietorship and for personal use. TD didn't care that 2 different accounts share the same info including address.

[Sunset]

Quote:

Originally Posted by beowulf Sorry if this has been answered already, but but looking through 896 posts appeared daunting. I have I bonds that go back to the early days of issuance when there was a guaranteed base rate. After that, it went to 0 and interest rates became low, I stopped buying them. I did my $10K for me and $10K for my wife with no problem. I was under the impression that we were limited to that amount. Is it possible for each of us to gift the other another $10K each? We have a trust, but it's a revocable joint trust, and I'm not sure about that either. Any ideas on how to increase the amount that can be purchased by a married couple? TYIA.

You can buy each a gift for each other (but not deliver the gift) of repeated $10K amounts. But the catch is you will in the future only be able to deliver 1 per year to the other spouse (each) and it counts against the spouse being able to buy any more I-bonds that year.

DW and I bought 3 gifts for each other and will deliver the gifts as follows:
2023 -> $10K plus interest to DW, $10K plus interest to me.
2024 -> $10K plus interest to DW, $10K plus interest to me.
2025 -> $10K plus interest to DW, $10K plus interest to me.

If I-bonds are still paying a high rate in 2023 , we will probably buy another gift for each other, as we will not be allowed to buy anything in our accounts.

gifts age and earn interest while sitting in the giftbox and not yet delivered, that is a big advantage of them.

[beowulf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sunset You can buy each a gift for each other (but not deliver the gift) of repeated $10K amounts. But the catch is you will in the future only be able to deliver 1 per year to the other spouse (each) and it counts against the spouse being able to buy any more I-bonds that year. DW and I bought 3 gifts for each other and will deliver the gifts as follows: 2023 -> $10K plus interest to DW, $10K plus interest to me. 2024 -> $10K plus interest to DW, $10K plus interest to me. 2025 -> $10K plus interest to DW, $10K plus interest to me. If I-bonds are still paying a high rate in 2023 , we will probably buy another gift for each other, as we will not be allowed to buy anything in our accounts. gifts age and earn interest while sitting in the giftbox and not yet delivered, that is a big advantage of them.

I am confused. I think you are saying that you buy the bonds for advance delivery to receive the interest. What I'm trying to find out if there is any way, other than a trust or company, to exceed the $20K limit for 2 people. I am guessing you use your method as there is no way to exceed the $10K per person limit. I did not realize you could buy gift bonds in advance and deliver them in a later year. Do you need separate TD accounts to do that?

[Bryan Barnfellow]

My wife and I live outside the US. I-Bonds are not available to us or the 8M other US expats in the world. Physical US residency is required.

Here in CH, the fed rate (Swiss National Bank) was only recently upped by 50 basis points (first increase in something like 15 years) from -0.75 to -.25. Currently banks like mine charge customers 0.75 interest on deposits above a threshold level of Swiss francs so that they can cover that loss in the fed rate. I am looking forward to only paying 0.25 soon as the cost of their holding my cash.

That's why the I-Bonds would have been a nice option to have.

-BB

[braumeister]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bryan Barnfellow Currently banks like mine charge customers 0.75 interest on deposits above a threshold

Back in the 70s, a friend had a Swiss bank account, just because he thought it was cool to have one of those "numbered" Swiss accounts. I don't remember exactly, but I think the negative interest rate was even higher back then.

[Sunset]

Quote:

Originally Posted by beowulf I am confused. I think you are saying that you buy the bonds for advance delivery to receive the interest. What I'm trying to find out if there is any way, other than a trust or company, to exceed the $20K limit for 2 people. I am guessing you use your method as there is no way to exceed the $10K per person limit. I did not realize you could buy gift bonds in advance and deliver them in a later year. Do you need separate TD accounts to do that?

I only need 1 account for me, to buy i-bonds up to $10K each year for me. I can also with the same account buy an unlimited amount of i-bonds for my DW.

This does get around the $10K limit, which is important right now as the interest (inflation part) is REALLY high.
A couple can buy many i-bonds as gifts, I don't know of any limit. This is good as the bonds age and earn interest, so if you deliver the i-bond 5 years after purchase, the receiver can cash it immediately with 5 yrs of interest plus no penalty.

While I would like to buy $300,000 worth of I-bonds as gifts for DW, I am fearful that in a few years I-bonds will have a low but existing interest rate and there will be no inflation. Meaning I would be stuck with lots of 0% i-bonds (30 years worth) while others will be buying 1% I-bonds

[pb4uski]

Quote:

Originally Posted by beowulf I am confused. I think you are saying that you buy the bonds for advance delivery to receive the interest. What I'm trying to find out if there is any way, other than a trust or company, to exceed the $20K limit for 2 people. I am guessing you use your method as there is no way to exceed the $10K per person limit. I did not realize you could buy gift bonds in advance and deliver them in a later year. Do you need separate TD accounts to do that?

I'm not aware of any way to exceed the $20k limit for two people other than a company or trust. However, it is very easy to set up his, her and joint revocable living trusts and they can each buy $10k so if is quite easy to increase your allowance to $50k for two people. I even considered establishing his1, his2, her1, her2, joint1 and joint2 revocable living trusts to increase the annual allowance to $80k a year.

I had recently purchase Willmaker Wills & Trusts ($90) for other reasons so it was very easy to establish his, her and joint revocable living trusts and IIRC it cost us $10 for each trust to have our signatures notarized. While we originally intended to use the joint trust for other things, at this point it looks like the only assets in the three trusts will be i-bonds.

[Trailwalker]

I've been putting $20,000 into ibonds for the last five years and didn't know about the giftbox until mentioned on this site. I'm hesitant to go very far out into the future on gifts, but it was a no brainer to do next year's ibonds for the two of us. Thanks to those who put the information out there. Process was easy, especially looking back and forth at the treasury direct video on the process.

[Romer]

I am seeing gifts on the IRS site about Gifts. Can you point me to where it says if you hold the gift till January it still grows interest but doesnt go against the recipients $10K limit? I can't find that documented

[Romer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Romer I am seeing gifts on the IRS site about Gifts. Can you point me to where it says if you hold the gift till January it still grows interest but doesnt go against the recipients $10K limit? I can't find that documented

Never mind found it
https://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv...imits_0406.htm

[Chuckanut]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/i-bonds...nd-11656508854

Just in case some may think these I-bond issues are not serious.

Among the facts - the Treasury has 40 full time people in its call center. But they are hiring more.

Quote:

But some customers—the Treasury says it doesn’t know how many—aren’t instantly approved. If the information those people enter doesn’t match the data that the Treasury’s verification service has on file, they must verify their identity by getting their signature certified on a document known as Form 5444. The Treasury says banks and brokerage employees, among others, may do that. Then the customer has to submit the form by snail mail.

Quote:

Besides a medallion stamp, banks can also use similar procedures including something called a signature guarantee. But some banks are declining to certify the forms out of concerns about liability. A Treasury spokesman said the agency may soon permit any notary public to certify individuals’ identities.

Quote:

Account holders must use a mouse or trackpad to enter their password on a ghostly gray online keyboard with no lower-case letters. Treasury officials say they are working on updating the website, which will take at least six to nine months.

Quote:

On one attempt, “the recording estimated an hour-and-a-half wait when I started,” said Ms. Andrews. More than an hour later, the estimated wait had risen to 2½ hours, at which point “the battery in my cordless phone went dead.” After trying intermittently since April, in early June she braved two hours and 13 minutes on hold until a “very helpful” customer-service representative picked up and restored her access in a few moments.

Quote:

Louise Andrews, a retiree in Williamsburg, Va., had to change the email address associated with her TreasuryDirect account after her old email got hacked. But the government’s website wouldn’t let her enter a new email address, because her old one was invalid.

[madatrub]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chuckanut https://www.wsj.com/articles/i-bonds...nd-11656508854 Just in case some may think these I-bond issues are not serious. Among the facts - the Treasury has 40 full time people in its call center. But they are hiring more.

paywalled

[jollystomper]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chuckanut https://www.wsj.com/articles/i-bonds...nd-11656508854 Just in case some may think these I-bond issues are not serious. Among the facts - the Treasury has 40 full time people in its call center. But they are hiring more.

The many denizens of this community would make EXCELLENT employees for their call center in terms of knowledge and nimbleness. A potential part time job. They should come here and try to hire a few folks .

[Dash man]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jollystomper The many denizens of this community would make EXCELLENT employees for their call center in terms of knowledge and nimbleness. A potential part time job. They should come here and try to hire a few folks .

They couldn’t pay me enough! [emoji23]

[TrvlBug]

I've just about had it. First, DH got caught in the 'we can't id you' hamster wheel and we were just about to head off our local bank to see if they have a certifying officer for Form 5444.

Lo and behold, I just get an email from TD wrt to my account. They can't verify my bank information (at least they were able to verify me ) and to check my TD account for more detailed info. Off I go, and the site is not available; please try later . I had sent an email to my Fidelity rep last week to see if he had any insight with DH's issue and also to make sure there were no issues with using the Cash Mgmt account. He stated he's had client who ran into DH issue but there will be no problem with the Cash Mgmt account and send a link to verify I'm using the correct routing number which I was.

While I think nothing of paying for convenience, I'm also thinking that these hassles are not worth the $. We'll see what DH has to say.