Sound Money Promotion Act Re-Introduced

Earlier this month, Sen. Mike Lee of Utah introduced S. 768: Sound Money Promotion Act. This legislation seeks to treat gold and silver coins used as legal tender in the same manner as United States currency for taxation purposes.

Under current law, legal tender gold and silver coins are considered to be collectibles for taxation purposes. As such, any gain derived from the sale or exchange of such coins is typically subject to capital gains tax at a rate of 28%. Notably, this is almost double the long term capital gains tax rate of 15% which applies to most other assets such as stocks, bonds, and real estate.

The bill seeks to amend the Internal Revenue Code such that gold and silver coins declared legal tender by the Federal Government or any Sate government would not be subject to taxation.

The Federal Government issued legal tender gold coins for circulation before 1933 and legal tender silver coins for circulation before 1964. In more recent times, legal tender gold and silver bullion coins, such as American Gold and Silver Eagles, have been issued. A multitude of numismatic and commemorative gold and silver coins have also been issued with legal tender face values.

At the state level, Utah and Arizona have both approved measures to make gold and silver legal tender in their respective states. More than a dozen other states have introduced or considered similar measures.

In the 112th Congress, Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina had introduced the Sound Money Promotion Act on June 28, 2011. The bill died in committee.

The current bill S. 768 was introduced on April 18, 2013 and has been referred to the Senate Finance committee. The two co-sponsors of the bill are Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky.

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"Monetary Reform: The Beginning of the Beginning"

by Charles Kadlec
The @DailyReckoning

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Fundamental reform of the world’s monetary system has begun. It is way too early and too amorphous to be front-page news. We are only at the beginning of the beginning of a popular effort to restore gold backed money to the center of economic activity.

Defining a dollar, or a British pound, as a fixed weight of gold was an innovation that further increased the usefulness of money. You could take currency and trade it for something you needed, or you could trade that money for a fixed weight of gold. As a general proposition, paying with paper money was no different than paying with gold, except paper money was more convenient to carry...

...Forty years ago, that order was up-ended by President Richard Nixon’s decision to sever the final link between the dollar and gold. For the first time since Sir Isaac Newton established the British gold standard in 1717, all of the world’s major currencies during a time of peace were free to float against one another and to fall in value against precious metals. The consequence has been a debasement of the dollar and all other currencies, an ever more cyclical economy, a 40-year hiatus in real wage increases for American workers and a growing fear of yet more financial crises created by monetary instability.

As a consequence, support is growing to repeal tax and other legal barriers that effectively prevent people from using precious metals as money.

In March, Utah repealed its capital gains tax on gold and silver coins it will recognize as legal tender. Twelve other states are considering similar legislation.

Then, in June, Senators Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) introduced the Sound Money Promotion Act that would remove the 28% federal tax on gains realized in the use of gold or silver coins recognized as legal tender for use within a state.

Now, in Switzerland, efforts are underway to create an official Gold Swiss franc (GSF) with a set of coins, each with a fixed content of gold. The proposed constitutional change would permit private institutions to issue an unlimited number of coins whose appearance, content and weight of gold, and definition would be under the supervision of the Swiss government...

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The Hill: "Senate GOP seeks to end taxes on gold and silver coins"

By Pete Kasperowicz

Sens. Jim DeMint (R-SC), Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) this week introduced legislation that would exempt gold and silver coins declared by the federal or any state government as legal tender from taxation.

The Sound Money Promotion Act, S. 1287, is meant to build on what the sponsors see as a reaction to overspending by the federal government and the falling value of the dollar. The senators said that in May, Utah became the first state to recognize these coins as legal tender within the state, and said 12 other states, including South Carolina, are considering similar measures...

The three said the rising price of gold, the weakening dollar, the negative credit rating that Standard & Poor's gave to the U.S. earlier this year, and significant Federal Reserve purchases of U.S. Treasuries are all signs of increasing economic risks to the U.S.

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"A First Step To Sound Money"

Editorial of The New York Sun | June 28, 2011

...It’s called the Sound Money Promotion Act, and The New York Sun is happy to lay claim to being the first newspaper to endorse it. The measure, as it is characterized in a press release posted by Senator DeMint, would remove the tax burden on gold and silver coins that have been declared legal tender by either the federal government or state governments...

...It seeks to block tax authorities from treating gold and silver coins as though they were mere commodities and start treating them, at least in tax law, as though they were what the Founders of America thought they were, which is money. Gold and silver coins are already treated this way, as legal tender, inside the state of Utah, whence Senator Lee was elected.

This is because Utah was the first state in our modern time to exercise its constitutional power to make gold and silver coins legal tender. It did so earlier this year, ahead of as many as a dozen states that are at various stages of looking in to the question of how to protect themselves against the collapse of the United States dollars that are being issued by the Federal Reserve. They are all being energized by the fact that the value of the dollar has collapsed to barely a fifth of what it was, if that, at the start of the 21st century...

...How far the three senators will get with the Sound Money Protection Act is hard to say. Its implication — a recognition of gold and silver as the true constitutional money — is, in the current context, radical. But it's no more radical than the Founders, who, when they twice used the word “dollars” in the Constitution, were referring to a coin containing 371 ¼ grains of silver. They codified that as the definition of the dollar in the Coinage Act of 1792. They also referenced gold in the 1792 Act, with a value of 15 times that of silver. We are in a time when understanding the concept of constitutional money will point the way to the policies needed to steer our country out of its current difficulties.

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DeMint, Lee, Paul Offer Bill to Begin Restoring Sound Money

Today, U.S. Senators Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina), Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) introduced the Sound Money Promotion Act, legislation that would remove the tax burden on gold and silver coins that have been declared legal tender by the federal government or state governments. On May 9, the State of Utah became the first state to recognize such gold and silver coins as legal tender for use within the state, and similar legislation has been introduced in 12 other states, including South Carolina...

“Thanks to the government’s reckless over-spending, continued bailouts, and the Federal Reserve’s easy money policy, this year the purchasing power of the dollar hit an all-time low in the several decades since we went off the gold standard,” said Senator DeMint. “In order to rebuild strength and confidence in our economy, we need both the fiscal discipline to cut wasteful spending and the monetary discipline to restrain further destructive monetizing of our debt. This legislation would encourage wider adoption of sound money measures, and that’s a step in the right direction.”

“Good monetary policy is an important part of a healthy and prosperous economy,” said Senator Lee. “Since the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, the dollar has lost approximately 98 percent of its value. This bill is an important step towards a stable and sound currency whose value is protected from the Fed's printing press."

Senator Paul added, "As the government runs massive deficits, uncontrolled spending, and an increasingly unsustainable debt, governments and the bureaucrats in charge are often forced to take an easier approach: to monetize the debt, inflating the currency. These implications can be devastating, leading to higher interest rates, which lead to higher borrowing costs and slower economic growth, but most importantly, destroying the savings and standard-of-living of all Americans. This bill will hold politicians and the Federal Reserve accountable; acknowledging that states are serious about an alternative to a weakening dollar.”

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