Originally posted on the Intuit ProAdvisor Newsletter – February 23rd, 2011, by Intuit Staff

An exciting new savings opportunity is launching for the 2010 tax season. Now, through Lacerte®, ProSeries®, and ProLine® Tax Online, all taxpayers can use a portion of their tax refund to buy U.S. Series I Savings Bonds.
There are a lot of great reasons to buy bonds at tax time:

  • An investment of $50 is all it takes to get started; depending on the amount of their tax refund, taxpayers may choose $50 or higher amounts.
  • No bank account is needed. Clients just choose the amount they want to save and they’ll receive the bonds in the mail. They may use all or a portion of their refund to buy bonds.
  • Clients earn interest right away because their money starts growing immediately.
  • Bonds are safe; U.S. Series I Savings Bonds will never lose value and are backed by the U.S. Government.
  • There are no fees to buy or cash in your bond.
  • Clients can gift savings to their loved ones. Bonds can be purchased in someone else’s name, so you can help your clients jumpstart the savings and dreams of the people they care about.

Lacerte, ProSeries, and ProLine Tax Online customers can follow the simple directions in the products and select the option they want. This story was written by Sakira Abbi, guest author. Sakira Abbi is a Savings Initiative specialist at Doorways to Dreams (D2D) Fund, a nonprofit organization working to help all families improve their financial security. D2D Fund, in collaboration with its partners, launched the campaign “Saving is Hard. Bonds Make it Easy” to build awareness of tax-time savings bonds and to help encourage all Americans to invest a part of their tax refund in U.S. Savings Bonds.