8046 / Is interest paid on amounts borrowed to purchase or carry market discount bonds deductible for bonds issued after July 18, 1984, and bonds issued before July 19, 1984 and acquired after April 30, 1993?

If amounts are borrowed or indebtedness is continued in order to purchase or carry a bond issued after July 18, 1984 at a market discount, or a bond issued before July 19, 1984 and purchased on the market at a discount after April 30, 1993, the interest expense is deductible to the extent that stated interest (or original issue discount) paid or accrued on it is includable in income for the year. (For the income tax treatment of market discount upon disposition of such bonds, see Q 7645 to Q 7648.) If interest expense exceeds that amount, it will be deductible to the extent that it exceeds the market discount allocable to the days on which the bond was held during the tax year. Interest expense that is allocable to the market discount accruing in the year is not currently deductible; the deduction is deferred.¹

Amounts so disallowed in one year may be deductible in a later year in which includable interest on the obligation is greater than the interest expense for that year. Generally, the taxpayer may elect, on a bond by bond basis, to deduct an amount of previously disallowed interest expense up to the difference.²

Any deferred interest expense not previously deducted under that election becomes deductible in the year in which the bond is sold or redeemed. If the bond is disposed of in a transaction in which part or all of the gain is not recognized (e.g., a gift), the deferred interest is allowed as a deduction at that time only to the extent that gain is recognized. (See, e.g., Q 7646 with respect to gain that is recognized on a gift.) To the extent deferred interest expense is not allowed as a deduction upon the disposition of the bond in such a nonrecognition transaction, the disallowed interest expense will be treated as disallowed interest expense of the transferee of transferred basis property, or the transferor who receives exchanged basis property in the transaction.³ (Transferred basis property is property having a basis determined in whole or in part by the basis of the transferor.⁴ Exchanged basis property is property having a basis determined in whole or in part by other property held at any time by the person for whom the basis is being determined.)⁵ Thus, in the case of a market discount bond that is transferred basis property (a gift, for example), the transferee will be entitled to deduct the previously disallowed interest expense as if it were his own.

On the other hand, interest expense allocable to market discount is currently deductible, not deferred, if the taxpayer has elected to treat the market discount as current income as it accrues under either the straight line or constant interest rate method.⁶ This election is discussed in Q 7644.Unless the interest expense on borrowing is greater than the sum of (1) interest income on the bond that would be includable in gross income in the absence of the election plus (2) the amount of market discount accruing over the days the bond was held in the year, the election will merely result in a wash; in other words, the deduction and the included interest will offset each other.