Most people believe there is an absolute $10,000 yearly limit for buying electronic Series I Savings Bonds. You can buy some more using your personal tax return, but there’s a little known way to legally buy even more!
So, the main idea is that separate entities have their own TreasuryDirect ® accounts. TreasuryDirect goes by TINs (Taxpayer Identification Numbers) for account creation. SSN (Social Security Number) is for individuals and EIN (Employer Identification Number) for businesses and other entities (EINs are numbers given out by the IRS for businesses and other entities).
So while you can obviously have your spouse buy $10,000 of I-Bonds, any other entities that you control can also get you the same privilege.
By the way, Linked Accounts don’t apply here, those are for within the same TIN (with the exception of dependents), you need a completely separate account.
Perhaps the simplest way is by using trusts. In the United States, trusts are technically their own legal entity. As such, a trust named “John Smith” would be distinct from an individual named “John Smith”. Strange, but true.
If for example, one had enough free time and money to set up three trusts with themselves as the trustee of “John Smith Trust 1”, “John Smith Trust 2”, “John Smith Trust 3”, they’d now be able to buy up to $30,000 extra in Series I Savings Bond using three separate TreasuryDirect entity accounts.
There are many forms of businesses, some registered and some not. Among the registered entity types are certain types of sole proprietorships, LLCs, and corporations.
If one has a business they own, with a separate TIN, one can create a separate TreasuryDirect ® account. And with a separate account lies a new I-Bond limit.
An additional thing to consider, is that depending on your state, while you have to register LLCs and corporations, you might not have to register sole proprietorships. So for this trick, you can just register with the IRS and get your EIN, avoiding the main headache of filling out the forms for the state.
Now, this stuff is certainly bordering on the gray areas of tax law, and I’m not a lawyer. But from my basic research, while getting EINs for a business for this shady reason might fall afoul of the IRS and venture into fraud, someone can make a trust for any reason. However, if you are self-employed or own your own legitimate business already, this should be completely fine. But again, DYOR.
Another note here. You still get taxed on these returns, and the way you get taxed depends on what entity legally controls the I-Bonds. A sole-proprietorship is pass-through and should be the same as you owning it. An LLC could be either pass-through or taxed differently. Also, trusts can be either qualified or non-qualified, which again affects how it gets taxed.
I really like I-Bonds as fixed income securities (especially now), and I also enjoy these sorts of financial tricks. But while this one definitely seems legally possible, the rub really lies in the hard work of setting up these entities, so I’ve personally held off on doing this til I can find an easier way.
Of course, even if you have the entities, this also requires enough patience and willpower to use the TreasuryDirect website times how many ever accounts you have. (Buying and selling coming soon to TreasuryViewer 🤠)