Amortizing Bond Premium Using The Effective Interest Rate Method

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Although the accrual period ends on August 1, 1999, the qualified stated interest of $5,000 is not taken into income until February 1, 2000, the date it is received. Likewise, the bond premium of $645.29 is not taken into account until February 1, 2000. The adjusted acquisition price of the bond on August 1, 1999, is $109,354.71 (the adjusted acquisition price at the beginning of the period ($110,000) less the bond premium allocable to the period ($645.29)). The amortization of a bond premium always leads to the bond’s actual, or effective, interest expense to be lower than the bond’s coupon interest payment for each period. When a bond sells at a premium, the actual, or market, interest rate is lower than the coupon, or nominal, rate.

Is accrued market discount on tax exempt bonds taxable?

When a market discount OID bond is held to maturity, the entire amount of the market discount will be taxed as ordinary income, but the accrual of remaining OID is tax-free.

The difference between Item 2 and Item 4 is the amount of amortization.

C uses the cash receipts and disbursements method of accounting, and C decides to use annual accrual periods ending on January 15 of each year. To compute one year’s worth of amortization for a bond issued after 27 September 1985 (don’t you just love the IRS?), you must amortize the premium using a constant yield method. This takes into account the basis of the bond’s yield to maturity, determined by using the bond’s basis and compounding at the close of each accrual period. Note that your broker’s computer system just might do this for you automatically. A holder amortizes bond premium by offsetting the qualified stated interest allocable to an accrual period with the bond premium allocable to the accrual period. This offset occurs when the holder takes the qualified stated interest into account under the holder’s regular method of accounting.

How Does An Amortizable Bond Premium Work?

Accrued market discount is the gain in the value of a discount bond expected from holding it for any duration until its maturity. Yarilet Perez is an experienced multimedia journalist and fact-checker with a Master of Science in Journalism. She has worked in multiple cities covering breaking news, politics, education, and more. Her expertise is in personal finance and investing, and real estate. In each year, the interest payment is equal to coupon payment, that is USD 8 million. We will illustrate the problem by the following example related to a premium bond. If you paid more for a bond than its face value, you need to amortize it.

When the effective interest method is used the amortization of the bond premium?

The effective interest method is an accounting standard used to amortize, or discount a bond. This method is used for bonds sold at a discount, where the amount of the bond discount is amortized to interest expense over the bond’s life.

The effective interest method is a more accurate method of amortization, but also calls for a more complicated calculation, since it changes in each accounting period. This method is required for the amortization of larger premiums, since using the straight-line method would materially skew the company’s results. Notice that under both methods of amortization, the book value at the time the bonds were issued ($104,100) moves toward the bond’s maturity value of $100,000. The reason is that the bond premium of $4,100 is being amortized to interest expense over the life of the bond. The interest expense in column C is the product of the 4% market interest rate per semiannual period times the book value of the bond at the start of the semiannual period. Notice how the interest expense is decreasing with the decrease in the book value in column G.

What Is The Effective Interest Method Of Amortization?

For your interest payment, you’ll credit cash because you’re receiving an increase in cash. Calculate the current interest expense based on the book value. To get the current interest expense, you’ll use the yield at the time you purchased the bond and the book value. For example, if you purchased a bond for $104,100 at an 8% yield, then the interest expense is $8,328 ($104,100 x 8%). Remember, though, that interest is paid twice per year so you need to divide that number by two, giving you $4,164.

Where P is the bond issue price, m is the periodic market interest rate, F is the face value of the bond and c is the periodic coupon rate. According to the effective interest rate method, the adjustment reflects the reality better. In other words, it reflects what the change in the bond price would be if we assumed that the market discount rate doesn’t change.

Intrinsically, a bond purchased at a premium has a negative accrual; in other words, the basis amortizes. We will solve the problem assuming first the effective interest rate method, and then the straight-line method. Michael R. Lewis is a retired corporate executive, entrepreneur, and investment advisor in Texas. He has over 40 years of experience in business and finance, including as a Vice President for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas.

On February 1, 1999, A purchases for $110,000 a taxable bond maturing on February 1, 2006, with a stated principal amount of $100,000, payable at maturity. The bond provides for unconditional payments of interest of $10,000, payable on February 1 of each year. A uses the cash receipts and disbursements method of accounting, and A decides to use annual accrual periods ending on February 1 of each year. The amortization of a bond discount always results in an actual, or effective, interest expense that is higher than the bond’s coupon interest payment for each period. When a bond sells at a discount, the actual, or market, interest rate is higher than the coupon, or nominal, rate. Therefore, accountants add the amount of bond discount amortization for each period to the coupon payment in cash to arrive at the actual interest expense for net income calculation.

Example Of The Amortization Of A Bond Premium

The Level 1 CFA Exam is approaching, so we have to keep up the pace. Today, let’s discuss the methods of amortizing bond discount or premium. When understanding the tax effect of purchasing a bond at a premium, remember that the premium becomes a part of the investor’s cost basis for the bond. For example, if you bought a bond for $104,100 that has a face value of $100,000, you would credit the bonds payable account for $100,000. When you first purchase the bond, the book value is the same as the amount you paid for it. For example, if you purchased a bond for $104,100, then the book value is $104,100.The book value will decrease every time you receive an interest payment.

Any excess amount paid for a bond which is over and above its face value is amortizable bond premium. As simple as the straight-line method is, the main problem with it is that the IRS generally doesn’t allow you to use it anymore. As IRS Publication 550 states, for bonds issued after Sept. 27, 1985, taxpayers must amortize bond premium using the constant-yield method, which differs from the straight-line method. For older bonds issued before Sept. 27, 1985, the straight-line method is still an option. The bond premium is the amount you calculated in Step 1 above.

Amortization of Bond Premium

The offers that appear in this table are from partnerships from which Investopedia receives compensation. Investopedia does not include all offers available in the marketplace. Calculate the difference between the interest you received and the interest expense. Free Financial Modeling Guide A Complete Guide to Financial Modeling This resource is designed to be the best free guide to financial modeling! Harold Averkamp has worked as a university accounting instructor, accountant, and consultant for more than 25 years. He is the sole author of all the materials on AccountingCoach.com.

How Does The Irs Amortize Bonds?

Calculating bond premium amortization using the straight-line method couldn’t be simpler. First, calculate the bond premium by subtracting the face value of the bond from what you paid for it. Then, figure out how many months are left before the bond matures and divide the bond premium by the number of months remaining. A method of amortizing a bond premium is with the constant yield method. The constant yield method amortizes the bond premium by multiplying the purchase price by the yield to maturity at issuance and then subtracting the coupon interest. The constant yield method is used to determine the bond premium amortization for each accrual period. Here’s a bit more discussion, excerpted from a page at the IRS.

  • Therefore, accountants add the amount of bond discount amortization for each period to the coupon payment in cash to arrive at the actual interest expense for net income calculation.
  • The straight line method can only be used for bonds issued before 1985.
  • If you bought a bond at 101 and were redeemed at 100, that sounds like a capital loss — but of course it really isn’t, since it’s a bond .
  • For your interest payment, you’ll debit cash because you’re receiving an increase in cash.
  • Therefore, the bond premium allocable to the accrual period is $2,420.55 ($9,000−$6,579.45).

James Chen, CMT is an expert trader, investment adviser, and global market strategist. He has authored books on technical analysis and foreign exchange trading published by John Wiley and Sons and served as a guest expert on CNBC, BloombergTV, Forbes, and Reuters among other financial media. The constant-yield method will give you a smaller amortization amount than the straight-line method in early years, with the constant-yield amortization figure growing in later years. That puts it at a overall disadvantage to the straight-line method from the taxpayer’s standpoint, which might be one reason why tax laws were changed to have newer bonds use the less favorable method.

Bond Premium

If you pay a premium to buy a bond, the premium is part of your cost basis in the bond. If the bond yields taxable interest, you can choose to amortize the premium. This generally means that each year, over the life of the bond, you use a part of the premium that you paid to reduce the amount of interest that counts as income. If you make this choice, you must reduce your basis in the bond by the amortization for the year. If the bond yields tax-exempt interest, you must amortize the premium.

C has not previously elected to amortize bond premium, but does so for 2002. On January 15, 1999, C purchases for $120,000 a tax-exempt obligation maturing on January 15, 2006, with a stated principal amount of $100,000, payable at maturity. The obligation provides for unconditional payments of interest of $9,000, payable on January 15 of each year.

Amortization of Bond Premium

It is because stated coupon rates are fixed and do not fluctuate. The bonds have a term of five years, so that is the period over which ABC must amortize the premium. When a company issues bonds, investors may pay more than the face value of the bonds when the stated interest rate on the bonds exceeds the market interest rate. If so, the issuing company must amortize the amount of this excess payment over the term of the bonds, which reduces the amount that it charges to interest expense.

If You Paid More For A Bond Than Its Face Value, You Need To Amortize It Here’s One Way To Do It

This correlation between the interest expense and the bond’s book value makes the effective interest rate method the preferred method. The preferred method for amortizing the bond premium is the effective interest rate method or the effective interest method. Under the effective interest rate method the amount of interest expense in a given year will correlate with the amount of the bond’s book value. This means that when a bond’s book value decreases, the amount of interest expense will decrease. In short, the effective interest rate method is more logical than the straight-line method of amortizing bond premium. The amortizable bond premium is a tax term that refers to the excess price paid for a bond over and above its face value. Depending on the type of bond, the premium can be tax-deductible and amortized over the life of the bond on a pro-rata basis.

Amortization of Bond Premium

If you hold the bond until maturity, the book value will be the same as the face value when you receive your final interest payment. The yield is effectively the total return that you’ll receive on the bond, based on the price you paid, if you hold it until maturity. IRS publication 550 states that a bond holder can choose to begin amortizing the bond at any time. However, if the bond holder wishes to stop amortizing the bond, the IRS must be notified. This choice does not affect the acquisition price to use, which is the price adjusted as if amortization began in the first year of ownership. The format of the journal entry for amortization of the bond premium is the same under either method of amortization – only the amounts change. The IRS requires that the constant yield method be used to amortize a bond premium every year.

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The effective interest rate method uses the market interest rate at the time that the bond was issued. In our example, the market interest rate on January 1, 2020 was 4% per semiannual period for 10 semiannual periods. For the remaining eight periods (there are 10 accrual or payment periods for a semi-annual bond with a maturity of five years), use the same structure presented above to calculate the amortizable bond premium. When a bond is issued at a price higher than its par value, the difference is called bond premium. The bond premium must be amortized over the life of the bond using the effective interest method or straight-line method. Amortizable Bond Premium refers to the cost of premium paid above the face value of a bond.

Of this paragraph , this same amount would be taken into income at the same time had A used annual accrual periods. The bond premium allocable to an accrual period is determined under this paragraph . Within an accrual period, the bond premium allocable to the period accrues ratably. The second way to amortize the premium is with the effective interest method.

It is an agreement to borrow money from the investor and pay the investor back at a later date. The election under this section applies to all taxable bonds held during or after the taxable year for which the election is made.

Method 1 Of 2:using The Constant Yield Method

When rates go up, bond market values goes down, and vice versa. To record these amounts, bondholders should understand how to amortize a bond premium. Bond amortization is a process of allocating the amount of bond discount or bond premium to each of a bond’s interest-paying periods over the term of the bond. Bonds may issue at a discount or a premium to their face value when the market interest rate is higher or lower than a bond’s coupon rate. Based on the remaining payment schedule of the bond and A’s basis in the bond, A’s yield is 7.92 percent, compounded semiannually. Therefore, the bond premium allocable to the accrual period is $645.29 ($5,000−$4,354.71).

The face value of a bond is also called “par value”, it is the original cost of a stock or the amount paid to the holder of a bond. Amortizable Bond Premium is the difference between the amount a bond is purchased and the face value/par value of the bond.