Last year I bought three batches of I-Bonds, one in my name and two intended as gifts for my wife and daughter. Apparently I did something wrong, and no gift accounts were created, although my holdings showed three separate holdings. I tried to figure out how to reclassify these as gifts using the TD website but got nowhere. So I finally broke down and called Treasury Direct this morning.
My experience was very positive. I expected a hold time, and it turned out to be just as long as the recording advised me — 15 minutes. The rep was friendly, helpful and knew exactly what to do. He walked me through each step patiently, and I was able to reclassify two batches of the bonds as gifts and transfer them to my wife and daughter. This all took about 10 minutes.
The I-Bonds for my daughter were a wedding present, so she can do whatever she pleases with them.
Comments
Some used the Gift route while the I-Bond rates were high, but the rate now may not be great setting up new Gifts.
BTW, IRS is setting up online tax filing for free. If they can make the user interface similar to that ofTurboTax, that would be very helpful for those with straightforward tax filing.
"But the success of TurboTax rests on a shaky foundation, one that could collapse overnight if the U.S. government did what most wealthy countries did long ago and made tax filing simple and free for most citizens."
"For more than 20 years, Intuit has waged a sophisticated, sometimes covert war to prevent the government from doing just that, according to internal company and IRS documents and interviews with insiders. The company unleashed a battalion of lobbyists and hired top officials from the agency that regulates it. From the beginning, Intuit recognized that its success depended on two parallel missions: stoking innovation in Silicon Valley while stifling it in Washington."
"Internal presentations lay out company tactics for fighting 'encroachment,' Intuit’s catchall term for any government initiative to make filing taxes easier — such as creating a free government filing system or pre-filling people’s returns with payroll or other data the IRS already has. 'For a decade proposals have sought to create IRS tax software or a ReturnFree Tax System; All were stopped,' reads a confidential 2007 PowerPoint presentation from an Intuit board of directors meeting. The company’s 2014-15 plan included manufacturing '3rd-party grass roots' support."
Link
Intuit did itself no favors by hiding the free software from users. Instead of living with half a loaf, it could wind up with crumbs. It, and H&R Block, shot themselves in the foot by going further and completely dropping out of the Free File program in 2021 and 2020 respectively.
https://www.propublica.org/article/turbotax-maker-intuit-will-leave-free-tax-filing-partnership-with-irs
From that piece: Worth noting who made the original proposal, given that https://www.politico.com/news/2023/05/16/irs-free-online-filing-system-00097198
Why haven't I seen lots of homeowners up in arms about their municipal government determining how much their property is worth (assessor), then based on that number calculating how much they owe in property taxes, and even collecting the taxes online. And if you don't pay, they'll send the county sheriff to arrest you, the city attorney to prosecute you, and the municipal court to try you.
Certainly those must be blatant conflicts of interest as well. I protest!
According to recent studies, over 60 million US tax returns could be completed automatically.