Treasury Direct trust account registration - co-trustees

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KeepingEyesOpen
Posts: 81
Joined: Sat Dec 12, 2015 9:49 pm

Treasury Direct trust account registration - co-trustees

Post by KeepingEyesOpen »

I have a longstanding Treasury Direct "Entity" (trust) account for my revocable living trust. After recently revising the trust to add my wife as a co-trustee, how should I title (change the registration wording) of the the Treasury Direct account? I called Treasury Direct -- after a 3+ hour wait a very pleasant representative explained that I needed to complete and mail in form 5446, "Offline Transaction Request" to change the entity registration, along with appropriate trust documenation.

She specified that sections A, D-1, and E of form 5446 should be completed. Due to heavy call voume she was no able to remain on the line to go over the form in detail. Essentially I need to change the entity registration reflecting the revised nature of the trust with the added co-trustee. All other terms of the trust and the TD account registration remain the same: trust creation date, trust grantor, etc. TD allows only one "Account Manager" - that will remain the same.

Terms of my trust authorize either trustee to act independently. From TD instructions: For multiple trustees if the trust instrument permits each trustee to act independently and without the consent of the other trustee, the connective “OR” may be used in the registration.

My trust account registration at other institutions (e.g., Fidelity, Vanguard) is in this format or similar:
John Q Smith or Sarah X Smith, trustees, John Q Smith Liv Tr dtd Mar 15 2010

Current Treasury Direct account registration is as follows:
John Q Smith Trustee under Delcaration of Trust dated 3-15-10.

This reflects the fact that the grantor and trustee are the same.

Following TD instructions: When the trustee and the grantor are the same person, the account is registered, “Trustee’s name” trustee under declaration of trust dated “date of trust instrument.”

Alternately: When the trustee and the grantor are not the same person, the account is registered, “Trustee’s name” under agreement with “Grantor’s name” dated “date of trust instrument.”

After careful reading of the Treasury Direct instructions in publication 0049 (https://www.treasurydirect.gov/forms/savpdp0049.pdf), I came up with the following possible registration formats:
1. John Q Smith or Sarah X Smith Co-Trustees Under Declaration of Trust dated 3-15-10 John Q Smith Living Trust
2. John Q Smith or Sarah X Smith Co-Trustees Under Agreement John Q Smith Living Trust dated 3-15-10

Should I use format #1 ("Under Declaration of Trust"), reflecting the original trust creation in which the grantor and trustee were the same?

Or format #2 ("Under Agreement ..."), reflecting the new trust containing one non-grantor as a co-trustee?

Perhaps someone in this forum can provide advice, since I prefer not to endure another 3+ hour phone call to TD to answer this follow-up question. New emailed questions to TD are not currently allowed due to heavy volume of requests to TD.

Please see the Treasury form 0049 for Questions and Answers About Trusts with many sample registration formats.
link: https://www.treasurydirect.gov/forms/savpdp0049.pdf
evelynmanley
Posts: 1022
Joined: Tue Sep 21, 2010 9:13 am

Re: Treasury Direct trust account registration - co-trustees

Post by evelynmanley »

I'm not sure this article addresses your specific question, but just in case:

Buy More I Bonds in a Revocable Living Trust
June 8, 2021 by Harry Sit

https://thefinancebuff.com/buy-more-i-b ... trust.html


Archives: https://thefinancebuff.com/tag/i-bonds
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