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Money Management (Distributed by the New Jersey Society of Certified Public Accountants)

Locate Savings Bonds and Interest Payments on Treasury Hunt Website

More than $8 billion worth of savings bonds that have stopped earning interest have not been cashed. Each year, 15,000 savings bonds and 2,000 interest payments are returned to the Treasury Department as undeliverable. Could one of them belong to you?

Now, it's easy to find out. The New Jersey Society of Certified Public Accountants (NJSCPA) reports that Treasury Hunt, a new Internet-based service launched earlier this year by the Bureau of the Public Debt, makes it possible for the public to find out if they are holding matured U.S. savings bonds that haven't been cashed.

MATURED OR UNDELIVERABLE?
The new website is a valuable resource for helping the public identify unredeemed bonds that are no longer earning interest. According to the Treasury Department, this category includes bonds issued in February 1961 and earlier, as well as bonds issued between December 1965 and June 1971. Unfortunately, since data on older bonds is stored on microfilm instead of computers, the information contained in the Treasury Hunt is incomplete. That means it's still a good idea to carefully check through your belongings if you think you may have unredeemed bonds that are no longer earning interest.

Also included in the Treasury Hunt database are Series E undeliverable bonds that have been returned since June 1996 and undeliverable Savings Bond Series HH/H interest payments. For the record, savings bonds and interest payments become "undeliverable" after financial institution issuing agents or the Federal Reserve make several unsuccessful attempts to deliver the bonds to investors. Returned interest payments usually result when a customer changes his or her bank account or address and fails to provide the Bureau of the Public Debt with new delivery instructions.

According to the U.S Treasury Department, there are at least 160,000 forgotten or "undeliverable" bonds waiting for their owners to claim them. While the Treasury Hunt database currently contains information on roughly 35,000 records, the site will be updated regularly as new information becomes available.

SEARCHING TREASURY HUNT IS EASY
Go to www.savingsbonds.gov on the Internet and select the Treasury Hunt icon. After clicking the "Start Search" button, you will be prompted for information such as name, city and state, and, in some cases, a Social Security number. If there is a possible match, you will be given instructions to reclaim your bond(s). According to the Treasury Department, the entire process is protected by sophisticated encryption, and a personal follow-up policy assures information is disclosed only to the actual owners of the bonds.

When conducting a search, be sure to use the name and address information under which the bond was purchased. Try variations of the name, in the event a spelling error was made, which is often the case with gift bond purchases.

ADDITIONAL TOOLS
The www.savingsbonds.gov site also includes a savings bond calculator that computes the current value of your bonds. You simply choose the series and denomination of your bond from the drop-down boxes provided. After you enter the issue date, the calculator displays the current value of the bond. The site includes instructions for building a bond inventory that simplifies the task of updating the value of your bonds.

Another tool, the Savings Bond Wizard, is a free, downloadable Windowsr application that allows you to price and maintain an inventory of your bonds in a spreadsheet format. It displays the current redemption value and earned interest for each bond (Series E, EE, I and Savings Notes) and the current value and interest rate for Series H and HH bonds. You can use the program's clipboard function to move bond information to other personal finance applications. You also can print your bond inventory, providing you with an important record should you need to replace your savings bonds.

CPAs encourage owners of forgotten or undeliverable bonds to put their money back to work by taking advantage of these specially designed Web-based tools.

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Money Management is a weekly column on personal finance distributed by the NJSCPA.

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