I have had the same problem for two successive years with no clue why IRS did not honor my paper I-bond request in my form 8888. Thanks to Bvi25, now I believe what Bvi25 pointed out is the root cause. It seems that all media and internet publications have missed out this important statement in Form 8888 instructions, which may have failed a lot of jointly filing couples requesting a combined amount of $5,050 to $10,000 paper i-bonds. By this fine print, it effectively limits to $5,000 paper bonds jointly filing couples can purchase in total rather than $5,000 each as most of the public have mistakenly believe.
