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Buying Savings Bonds via IRS Tax Refunds to Discontinue from 1/1/25

yogibearbullyogibearbull
edited August 31 in Other Investing
Treasury is discontinuing the program to buy additional $5K in paper Savings Bonds through IRS tax refunds from 1/1/25. Lack of demand, higher costs and losses in US Mail are cited as reasons.
The electronic purchase limit of $10K is unchanged.
IMO, with the US deficits and debt rising, the Treasury should improve its Savings Bonds program. Instead, it's gradually making it more difficult to buy and sell them. And the response time of Treasury Direct for many issues is weeks.
https://www.treasurydirect.gov/research-center/faq-irs-tax-feature/

Comments

  • msf
    edited August 31
    Well that's disappointing, though the limit was so low that it doesn't really affect much.

    ... and losses in US Mail are cited as reasons
    If you've got a problem, don't fix it (improve USPS), avoid it.

    The USPS lost one of my refund bonds a few years ago. That was a pain to replace. Wait months to ensure bond was really lost before one can request a replacement, wait for replacement to arrive in the mail (with luck), then mail it back to convert to electronic form.

    It's not just paper savings bonds that are being discontinued. You used to be able to have the Treasury Dept retain part of your refund to buy electronic savings bonds (this didn't increase your $10K limit). That's also being eliminated. No great loss there.

    The newest draft of Form 8888 contains this little What's New item:
    Purchase of savings bonds discontinued. The program allowing for your refund to be deposited into your TreasuryDirect® acccount to buy savings bonds, as well as the ability to buy paper bonds with your refund, has been discontinued. Form 8888 is now only used to split your direct deposit refund between 2 or more accounts or to split your refund between a direct deposit and a paper check. For more information go to https://treasurydirect.gov/research-center/faq-irs-tax-feature/.
    https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-dft/f8888--dft.pdf
  • Tarwheel
    I probably won’t buy any more for one simple reason. They don’t mail you 1099 Interest forms at the end of the year. You have to download them from their site, which is no big deal unless you forget. I ended having to file an amended tax return this year after realizing that.
  • msf
    My state stopped mailing 1099-G's. So I'm not going to pay state taxes any more. :-)
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