If you purchase a bond that is paying out interest rates higher than the markets interest rate a bond premium will be included in the purchase price. The market uses the bond premium to adjust the price of a bond that has too high of an interest rate.

It can be complicated for record keeping when dealing with bond premiums. By simply amortizing the amount of the premium throughout the bonds lifetime will allow you to allocate the premium over a period of years to reflect the bond is paying interest to reduce the interest of the bond. If you are adjusting the bonds interest rate make sure you are using an effective interest rate that will allow the bonds annual interest to be counted as equal at the yield when the bond matures.

To earn higher profits and to avoid complex record keeping you can simply ignore the bond premium. When ignoring bond premiums you are able to overstate the interest that was earned over the life of bond and show you are paying higher income tax on the bonds interest over that period. Once the bond matures it will show a capital loss that should be equal to the bonds premium amount that you have but never recorded.

Recording the bond premiums as a loss upon maturity or recording them as a final year adjustment on the bonds interest will save time and pain when dealing with the record keeping aspect of the investment.

The IRS allows U.S. taxpayers to use the strategy of ignoring bond premiums until year?s end for calculation. This technique just simply allows you to overstate the interest amount you earned with your bond venture.

Bonds that pay a lower interest rate than that of the markets will be allowed to use the bond discount. You will handle a bond discount in almost the same fashion as you would a bond premium.

When you have purchased a bond discount you are required to allocate that discount over the years of the bonds lifetime with it being treated as additional interest. A good example is if you purchased a $500 bond with a $600 return upon its maturity you would earn a $100 profit that is counted as the interest amount. This is a similar method to the zero coupon bond.

Any accrued interest should be recorded when using a bond discount. Have the accrued interest amount match the bond discount amount that you allocated for that year. Accrued interest from a bond discount is actually the amortization.

The IRS does specify that all U.S. taxpayers amortize their bond discounts, however if you know about the loop hole you can avoid this. If you utilize this strategy correctly you can save record keeping headaches as well as money. A bond discount that has a very diminutive adjustment in its effective interest rate paid then you usually can forget the record keeping on amortization for that bond discount. Speaking to a tax advisor if you are uncertain about what records should be kept and what strategies will earn you the most will help you understand more.

Susan Reynolds is a content coordinator a leading South African bond origination portal. For more information visit: http://www.bondcredit.co.za/