Question

In: Finance

Although illegal to issue in the United States, a few European countries still allow bearer bonds...

Although illegal to issue in the United States, a few European countries still allow bearer bonds to be sold, including Luxembourg, and they can also be found in some Central American and South American countries. Describe the differences between bearer and registered bonds? Why might an investor want to own bearer bonds?

Solutions

Expert Solution

Bearer bonds are issued in physical certificate form of ownership. However, no records of legitimate ownership are maintained for these type of bonds. The holder of this certificate is treated as legal owner and is paid the interest amount.

However, for registered bonds, as the name suggests, records are maintained about the ownership of such bonds. Most of these registered bonds are now electronic in nature and rarely issued in paper format now.

If we were to tabulate few or major difference between the two types of forms:

Bearer Form

Registered Form

Issuance form

Physical certificates

Mostly electronic

Record of ownership

Not maintained

Maintained

Transfer of ownership

Does not require any transfer agent

Required a transfer agent in order to legally transfer the ownership

Interest Payments

Made to the one who present (hold) this bond, regardless of how he holds them – if he bought them or stole them.

Made to the registered owner of the bond

Tax evasion

Since no records for this are maintained, it is used for tax evasion purposes, even if the yields might slightly be lower

Proper records maintained prevent any tax evasion circumstances largely

One of the major reason for investing in a bearer bond would be to evade taxes. Since they leave little trail of transactions - interest payments, selling and buying - they are an easy tool to evade taxes. Also, in case if the investor wants to maintain secrecy or privacy around his ownership of assets, he can use bearer bonds. However, this privacy or secrecy maintenance is usually for the purpose of tax evasion or generally other things which are deemed illegal by regulators or government.


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