Gold IRA Tax Rules: Guidelines for 202319 min read

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In the closing days of 2022, Congress passed and the President signed the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 into law. The new law includes some important changes to tax laws related to individual retirement accounts (“IRAs”), which include gold and precious metal IRAs.

This article reflects the changes under the SECURE 2.0. Many other articles covering gold IRA tax rules, rollover guides, and other similar content you may find in your Web search results don’t have those changes incorporated. Just be aware of those changes as you conduct your internet research.  

Background

The modern individual retirement account was first introduced as part of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, or ERISA, for short.

Congress wanted to provide an incentive for employees to set aside savings and invest for their own retirements.

The original individual retirement account, now called “traditional IRAs” in order to distinguish them from Roth IRAs, allowed taxpayers to save money pre-tax, and allowed for tax-deferred growth on IRA assets until retirement – a powerful tax incentive, particularly under the higher marginal income tax rates in effect prior to the 1986 tax reform.

At the same time, Congress did not want the benefits of the IRA to accrue primarily to the wealthy. So they set limits on the amount taxpayers could contribute each year – especially for those who already enjoyed the benefits of a retirement plan at work. They also limited the tax deduction on contributions to workers who earned less than a set amount of income each year.

In 1997, the Taxpayer Relief Act created the Roth IRA, which provided even more powerful potential tax benefits for contributors: Contributions were no longer deductible, even for lower-income taxpayers. But assets in the account could grow tax-free indefinitely. And distributions for retirement income were also tax-free.

More than that, the 1997 legislation also opened the door for taxpayers to own physical gold, silver, platinum, and palladium bullion within their IRAs. It also allowed for other types of alternative investments, such as real estate, to be held within self-directed IRAs. 

Related: How to Diversify Your Retirement with Physical Gold & Silver

Contributions

As of 2023, you can contribute up to $6,500 to any combination of traditional or Roth IRAs.

If you’re age 50 or older, you can contribute up to $7,500 if you’re age 50 or older. Married couples may contribute up to double those amounts in a spousal IRA, even if one spouse doesn’t have earned income of his or her own. 

The contribution deadline is the tax filing deadline each year, disregarding extensions. Normally that’s April 15th, unless that date falls on a weekend or holiday. 

Allowable Gold Investments

Those interested in investing in gold should be aware that not all forms of gold or precious metals are allowed for investment in IRAs. To facilitate valuation and fair taxation, Congress limits IRA investments to specific forms of bullion of minimum levels of purity and fineness, and then only from national mints or specially-certified private mints and manufacturers. 

In addition to gold, U.S. law allows investors to own three other types of precious metals within a self directed IRA or other tax-advantaged retirement account: silver, platinum, and palladium. 

• Gold investments held in a self directed IRA must generally be of a minimum fineness of .995 (99.5 percent pure), except for some U.S.-minted coins that are made of a more durable and scuff-resistant gold alloy. The law makes an exception to otherwise applicable purity requirements for American Gold Eagles and certain other U.S.-made gold coins and bars. 
• Silver must have a minimum fineness of .0999 (99.9 percent pure).
• Platinum and palladium must be minted to a minimum fineness of .9995 (99.95 percent pure. 

In addition to meeting the minimum fineness requirements, all IRA-owned bars, rounds, and coins must be bullion, produced by a national government mint, or manufactured by a refiner assayer, or manufacturer accredited by NYMEX, NYSE/Liffe, LME, LPPM, COMEX, ISO 9000, or TOCOM. 

Proof coins (e.g., American Eagle Proof coins) must be in “excellent” condition, stored in the original and complete packaging from the mint.

Non-proof bullion coins must be in “brilliant uncirculated” condition, and free from scuffing or damage.

Small bullion bars must be manufactured to precise weight specifications. Exceptions are 100- and 400-ounce gold bars, 1000-ounce silver bars, 50-ounce platinum, and 100-ounce palladium bars. 

Related: How to Convert a Portion of Your 401(k) or IRA into Gold & Silver Bullion

Taxation on Growth Within Gold and Precious Metals IRAs

Generally, all the money you contribute to a traditional IRA enjoys the benefit of tax-deferred growth. That is, once your contributed money is in the account, there are no taxes due on capital gains, dividend income, or interest income on anything inside the account.

If you held your gold and other assets outside of the retirement account (e.g., in a safe deposit box), you would have to pay taxes (specifically, short-or long-term capital gains tax) on any profits you earn in the account, subtracting out losses from completed trades. On gold, silver, and other precious metals and collectibles, you would normally have to pay taxes (a 28% collectibles tax) on any profits you make on the sale.

That’s enough to create quite a drag on your returns – especially if you trade frequently – so not one of the best gold investment vehicles!

By placing assets in a self directed IRA or other tax-advantaged account, the IRA tax rules allow you to legally avoid the usual  taxes on collectibles, and keep them from eating away at your retirement account assets as long as they stay in the account. 

Exception: Unrelated Business Income Tax (UBIT) Considerations

The benefit of tax deferral only extends to the money you yourself contributed to the IRA. It does not extend to money you borrowed within your IRA, so you would still have to pay taxes on money that others contribute to the IRA.

If you employed leverage (e.g., a mortgage or margin loan, or a loan from a precious metals dealer to buy more precious metals or any other asset), a portion of your IRA may be subject to a special tax called unrelated business income tax (UBIT), or unrelated Debt-Financed Income Tax (UDIT).

If your self directed IRA contains a closely-held trade or business, has certain types of rental income, receives certain types of passive income from a business your IRA controls, or earns money via a pass-through entity controlled by your IRA (e.g., a partnership or master limited partnership), or uses debt to finance investments, you may face a UBIT issue.

You must pay income tax on any UBIT that exceeds $1,000 for the year. 

This is a significant factor for many people who use a self directed IRA and who want to employ leverage to potentially magnify their gains (and losses) within their IRAs and other retirement accounts.

For information on how UBIT or UDIT might apply in your specific situation, you should consult with a qualified tax professional. 

Related: Birch Gold Group Review – Best Gold IRA Company?

Gold IRA Rollovers and Transfers

A great way to start investing in gold is to transfer assets from a 401(k) or other tax deferred retirement account into an IRA without tax consequences. That is, you won’t pay taxes (income or capital gains) on any assets you move from your 401(k) or other tax-deferred retirement account, or from one IRA to another IRA, provided you follow the rules. 

There are two ways to move assets:

You can have the custodian of your old account wire the funds directly to your new IRA account, without the money ever passing through your possession in a trustee-to-trustee transfer. This is the safest and most common method.

This is the method most people use if they simply want to move money from a company 401(k) or an old off-the-shelf IRA from an investment company that doesn’t support self-directed IRAs, gold IRAs, or other forms of precious metal transactions to a new custodian that does support these kinds of transactions.

These trustee-to-trustee transactions from one IRA to another are more properly called transfers than rollovers. The term “rollover” is most properly used to refer to the process of moving assets between two different account types, such as from a 403(b) plan to an IRA. 

The 60-Day Rule

Once per year, and once only, the law allows you to do a tax and penalty-free 60-day rollover. That is, you withdraw cash from your 401(k), 403(b), IRA, or other retirement account and take control of it personally. To preserve the tax-free nature of the transaction, you must complete depositing the entire amount in your new IRA account within 60 days.

If you blow the 60-day deadline, the IRS rules will deem you to have taken a distribution on the entire amount you failed to deposit by the deadline. You’ll then face income taxes on that amount, and if you are under age 59½ (or age 55 if you’re rolling over a 401(k)), a potential 10% additional penalty for early withdrawal.

Warning: Beware the 401(k) Withholding Trap

Be aware that if you take cash out of your 401(k), your plan sponsor must by law withhold 20% of the amount you withdraw and send it to the IRS. This is to ensure that you will pay income tax on your withdrawal.

However, under the 60-day rule, you only have 60 days to deposit the entire amount of your withdrawal. Otherwise you will pay income taxes and penalties on the amounts withdrawn. 

Warning: Do Not Take Personal Possession of Gold or Other Precious Metals in your Self-Directed Retirement Accounts

Some people have made the mistake of taking a withdrawal from a retirement plan intending to create a gold IRA, but purchased the gold with the cash proceeds from their withdrawal, thinking they can deposit the gold into their IRA.

You can’t do this. Under prohibited transaction rules, you may not take personal possession of gold or other precious metals within your IRA at any time. If you do, the IRS rules will deem you to have taken a distribution of the entire amount, resulting in significant taxes and penalties. 

Distributions

A distribution is just a withdrawal of assets from an IRA or other tax-advantaged account that is not a transfer, rollover, or charitable gift.

IRA tax rules governing distributions that are applicable to IRAs in general are also applicable to gold IRAs and precious metal IRAs. 

Unlike workplace retirement plans, such as 401(k)s and 403(b)s, you can make withdrawals (distributions) from your IRA at any time for any reason. However, if you are not yet age 59½, your distribution may be subject to a 10% excise tax penalty. 

Standard Liquidated Distributions vs. In-Kind Distributions from Gold and Precious Metals IRAs

Since gold IRAs and self directed precious metals IRAs own the physical bullion coins, bars, and rounds, gold investors have more options as to how they want to withdraw those assets.

The first and most common option is the standard liquidated distribution. IRA tax rules indicate that if you want to take money out of your self directed IRA, you must direct your custodian what coins or other bullion you want them to liquidate.

The gold IRA custodian then finds a buyer for those assets (the market for smaller-denomination silver and gold bullion is quite liquid, so there’s usually not much of a problem liquidating popular gold coins, silver coins, and other bullion), and then wire you the cash.

If the gold IRA in question is a traditional IRA, the distribution will be taxable. You’ll receive a Form 1099 from your custodian, detailing how much of the withdrawal is taxable. 

If it’s from a Roth IRA, the distribution would normally not consist of taxable income (provided the Roth account has been in existence for at least five years.

The second option is the in-kind distribution.

In an in-kind distribution, you direct your custodian to ship the actual physical gold, silver, platinum, or palladium bullion to you directly.

Either way, the distribution from a traditional IRA will be taxable. In the event of the in-kind distribution, you’ll get a Form 1099 from the custodian detailing the amount of the withdrawal, which will be based on the spot price of the metal at the time they executed the withdrawal.

You may have shipping costs. 

Traditional IRA Distributions

With traditional IRAs, you will also have to pay ordinary income taxes on some or all of the amount of your distribution. 

However, there are a number of “hardship” exemptions to the usual 10% early withdrawal penalty:

• Unreimbursed medical expenses that exceed more than 7.5% of adjusted gross income (AGI) or 10% if younger than 65;
• Certain qualified higher education expenses;
• Up to $10,000 (lifetime limit) for the purchase of a home. You can only use this penalty-free visit if you have not owned a home at any point over the previous two years;  
• Withdrawals necessary to avoid eviction or foreclosure;
• Withdrawals to pay health insurance premiums (after 12 weeks of unemployment or more);
• Certain expenses if you’re a qualified military reservist called to active duty;
• Death;
• Total disability; and
• Withdrawals that are part of a series of substantially equal periodic withdrawals under Section 72(t) of the Internal Revenue Code. This provision essentially allows for early retirees to avoid the penalty by committing to taking a series of payments over their life expectancy.

Example: You could buy a lifetime income annuity within your IRA at any time, and receive guaranteed substantially equal periodic payments for the rest of your life. These would not be subject to the usually applicable 10% early withdrawal penalty. However, you’d have to liquidate your gold holdings in a gold IRA before you can use those assets to pay an annuity premium. 

• Distributions for “unforeseeable or immediate financial needs relating to personal or family emergency expenses.” Effective starting 2024, the SECURE 2.0 Act allows IRA owners to make a penalty-free distribution up to $1,000 in a calendar year.  Withdrawals may be repaid over a period of 3 years, subject to certain conditions. No additional emergency distributions may be made in the 3-year repayment period unless the original distribution is repaid or the total contributions to the plan during the 3-year repayment period exceed the amount of the original emergency distribution.

Related: Gold IRA Scams – Gold Dealer Lies and Gimmicks to Avoid in 2023

Roth IRA Distributions

With Roth IRAs, as long as the account is at least 5 years old, distributions are tax free. 

That’s an important benefit of Roth IRAs – especially for those in higher tax brackets. Another benefit is that Roth IRA distributions don’t count toward your adjusted gross income for the year. Which means they don’t contribute to triggering the tax on Social Security benefits, which applies to people who show incomes above certain thresholds. 

This is an important facet of retirement income tax planning. Speak with a tax advisor about how to structure income and Social Security benefits to avoid having to pay needless taxes on Social Security benefits and IRA income. 

Like traditional IRA distributions, Roth IRA distributions also may carry a 10% penalty for early withdrawal – but only on the earnings within the Roth IRA, so long as the account is at least 5 years old.

Since you make Roth IRA contributions with after tax money, the IRS already got their pound of flesh out of the money you originally contributed. So you only pay the early withdrawal penalty on the amount of the growth within the Roth IRA. 

Example: You’ve been interested in investing in gold for several years now, so you decide to buy ten 1-ounce gold coins for your Roth IRA at $2,000 per troy ounce (disregarding any transaction costs, premiums, etc.). 

In six years, you decide that you’d rather direct your funds to other gold investments that your current IRA custodian doesn’t have access to (so you want to sell your physical gold and transfer that money out of the IRA). But the price of gold has increased to $3,000 per troy ounce. So the value of your gold IRA account has increased from $20,000 to $30,000. The growth in the account is ($30,000 – $20,000), or $10,000. 

 You are not yet age 59½. No hardship circumstances apply.

So you have $1,000 of growth in each of your ten coins, or $10,000.

Your original $20,000 that you invested in physical gold coins within your Roth IRA is not taxed, since it was taxed already when you earned it.

The $10,000 in total growth is not taxed, because it’s in a Roth IRA, as opposed to a traditional IRA.

As per the gold IRA tax rules, the 10% penalty for early withdrawal only applies to the growth, which is $10,000.

So there’s no income tax due on any of it. But there’s an early withdrawal penalty of $1,000. 

Roth IRA Hardship Withdrawal Rules

The same hardship exemptions that apply to traditional IRAs also apply to Roth IRA accounts. There is no 10% penalty on the growth for early withdrawals from Roth IRA if a hardship circumstance applies. 

Required Minimum Distributions

When Congress created the modern IRA in connection with ERISA, they did not intend for the benefit of tax deferral to last forever. Instead, Congress believed that would have been an unfair tax break for the relatively wealthy, who can afford to make large contributions to IRAs.

So they created the required minimum distribution, or RMD.

Once you reach a certain age, you’re required to begin taking money out of your IRA (and other types of tax deferred accounts), and pay income taxes on that money. 

Until the SECURE Act became effective in January 2022,  IRA owners had to begin taking RMDs not later than April 1st of the year after the year in which they turned age 70½.

The SECURE Act increased the minimum RMD age to 72. 

SECURE 2.0 made several beneficial changes to the old RMD rules.

First, effective in 2023, the age at which most people must start taking their required minimum distributions from retirement accounts rises from 72 to 73. 

Then, in 2033, the RMD age will increase to 75. 

Exception: If you turned 72 in 2022, you must still take your first RMD by April 1st of this year, and take a second distribution before the end of the calendar year.  

The penalty for failing to take your required minimum distributions for the year are falling from a draconian 50% to 25%. But if you can correct the error in a timely fashion, the penalty falls further, to a much more reasonable 10%.

Starting in tax year 2024, SECURE 2.0 also eliminates the RMD requirement for Roth 401(k) accounts, bringing them into line with the rules for Roth IRAs. So if you have a self-directed gold Roth 401(k) account, you will no longer be required to take RMDs from that account. 

Related: How to Diversify Your 401(k) with Gold and Silver (Tax-Free)

Prohibited Transaction Rules

The law prohibits “self-dealing” within retirement accounts, including gold IRAs and other precious metal IRAs. In other words, you can’t use your tax-advantaged retirement accounts as a personal piggy-bank to benefit your family members and business partners.

To that end, Congress has enacted several “prohibited transaction” rules that apply to all types of retirement accounts:

For example, you cannot use retirement accounts to buy, sell, lend to, or borrow from any of the following:

• Yourself
• Your spouse
• Your direct descendants and ascendants
• Your spouse’s descendants and ascendants
• Anyone who advises you on your retirement assets in a fiduciary capacity
• Any entity controlled by any of the above parties 
• You cannot make personal use of or take personal possession of the physical assets within your IRA – nor can any of the above parties 

Additionally, you cannot pledge anything in your retirement account as collateral for a loan – except within your retirement account itself. For example, you cannot use the gold bars in your IRA as collateral for a personal loan, business loan, or mortgage for any property outside your IRA.

However, you can potentially use the funds within your gold IRA as collateral for a loan for your IRA itself – for example, to leverage up to buy real estate to be held within your IRA, or to buy more precious metals for inclusion within your gold IRA.

The key is to keep the collateral and the loan proceeds and everything they buy within the IRA.

If you are caught making prohibited transactions, the IRS may disallow your entire IRA, and force you to take an immediate taxable distribution of the entire account.

You may also face substantial additional fines, penalties, and you might end up paying a significant amount of legal fees and costs. 

Beware the “Home Storage IRA” Salespeople

Occasionally, you may see advertisements or salespeople hawking some form of a “home storage gold IRAs.”

The idea is that you can establish a new gold IRA, and then form an LLC, to be held entirely within the IRA. That is, the IRA itself is the sole owner of the LLC,  and the LLC itself owns the gold (and, not you personally). The salespeople will then conclude that this “shield” somehow gives you the ability to store the gold in your own safe at home. 

This is a very bad idea for multiple reasons, but mostly because it’s illegal. The courts have ruled repeatedly that you cannot use an LLC to get around prohibited transaction rules, such as the rule that prohibits you from taking direct personal possession of your IRA assets.

For instance, in McNulty v. Comm’r of Internal Revenue, the United States Tax Court determined that a husband and wife’s actions in taking actual physical custody of gold IRA assets and holding them in a home safe constituted a taxable distribution as of the date they received the assets – accordingly, the husband and wife were required to pay taxes on the distributions, penalties, and related fees and costs.

IRA Charitable Distribution Rules

Since 2006, the law has allowed those who must take RMDs from IRA accounts to transfer up to  $100,000 per year directly from one or more IRAs to one or more public charities or  private operating foundations as qualified charitable distributions (QCDs). This benefit applies to those who are at least age 70½. Note that this is a different age from the current age at which traditional IRA owners must begin taking RMDs, which is age 72 as of 2023. 

However, the SECURE 2.0 Act allows IRA owners to make a one-time $50,000 distribution directly from an IRA or IRAs to a charitable remainder trust or a charitable annuity and make a one-time election to treat the contributions as if they were qualified charitable distributions made directly to a charitable entity.

This is a new tax benefit available for the first time in 2023. 

Charitable planning is a deep and complex subject that is beyond the scope of this paper. If you are interested in using your gold IRA or any other IRA asset for charitable purposes, you should consult with a qualified tax professional.

Related: How to Buy Gold and Silver with Your Thrift Savings Plan (TSP)

Inherited Gold IRA Rules

This chapter deals with what happens if you should inherit a gold IRA or Roth gold IRA from the original account owner.

The rules for inherited IRAs depend several factors: 

• Whether the beneficiary is the spouse of the deceased
• Whether the inherited IRA is a traditional or Roth IRA
• The age of the original IRA owner at the time of his or her death
• Whether the beneficiary inheriting the IRA has reached the age of majority. 
• Whether the beneficiary is disabled

SECURE Act Update: 

Passed in the closing days of 2019, The SECURE Act made significant changes to the rules concerning an inherited individual retirement account. When researching the topic of inherited IRAs, make sure you’re reading up-to-date information.

Here are the generally applicable rules concerning inherited IRAs. 

Inherited Traditional IRAs

Spouse as beneficiary

If the beneficiary of an inherited traditional IRA is the spouse of the deceased, then they enjoy some special privileges when it comes to the disposition of their inherited IRA:

If you inherit a traditional IRA account from your deceased spouse, you have two choices:

1.)  roll the entire account into their own IRA

2.), or to treat the account as an inherited IRA. 

If you choose to roll inherited gold IRA accounts (and/or another inherited precious metals IRA) into your own gold IRA, please note that you’re subject to the same tax treatment as any other IRA owner:

• Withdrawals before age 59½ may be subject to a 10% excise tax penalty. 
• You will be subject to required minimum distribution rules, starting at age 72 under current law. 

Note: If your spouse died prior to RMD age, you can delay taking RMDs from an inherited traditional IRA  until you yourself  reach the RMD age. This may be a good strategy if you are significantly younger than your deceased spouse, because you can take advantage of more tax-deferred growth.

Non-spouse as beneficiary.

Prior to the passage of the SECURE Act in 2019, non-spouse beneficiaries had the option to “stretch” their distributions over their own life expectancies. That gave the beneficiary the benefit of sometimes decades of tax-deferred growth. (With Roth IRAs, the non-spouse beneficiary could “stretch” tax free withdrawals over their life expectancy!) 

Congress decided that was just way too good a deal, and changed the law so that non-spouse IRA beneficiaries must withdraw the entire amount within ten years of the original account owner’s death.

Effectively, the SECURE Act did away with the popular “stretch IRA” estate planning technique. 

If you inherit a traditional IRA from someone other than your spouse, and the deceased original IRA owner has already reached the age at which they must take RMDs (age 72 under current law) you must take required minimum distributions (RMDs) from the account each year, spread out over the next ten years. 

Related: Gold IRA Guide – Protect Your 401(k) or IRA with Precious Metals

Inherited Roth IRAs

Inherited Roth IRAs are subject to the same rules as traditional inherited IRAs. However, distributions from an inherited Roth IRA are tax-free as long as the account has been open for at least five years before the original account owner’s death.

As with traditional IRAs, non-spouse inherited Roth IRAs must be completely emptied within ten years of the original account owner’s death.

Exception for beneficiaries not more than 10 years younger than the original owner.

If you inherit an IRA and you are not more than 10 years younger than the deceased original account owner, you may be exempt from the otherwise applicable ten year rule on distributions. You can stretch distributions over your life expectancy. 

Exception for minor beneficiaries

If the beneficiary is a minor, the account must be set up with a custodian to manage the account until the beneficiary reaches the age of majority. 

At that point, the beneficiary must empty the entire account within ten years of reaching the age of majority.

Note that this can give a minor beneficiary the benefit of more years of tax-advantaged compounding: they get however many years it takes for them to reach the age of majority, and then up to ten years beyond that!

Exception for Disabled or Chronically Ill Beneficiaries

If the non-spouse beneficiary is disabled, they can stretch distributions from inherited IRAs over their entire life expectancy. 

It is important to note that the rules for inherited IRAs are complex and may vary depending on your specific circumstances. It is always a good idea to consult with a financial professional or tax advisor for guidance.

Inherited IRA Strategies

If you inherit an IRA from someone other than your spouse, you basically have three withdrawal strategies you can follow:

Option 1: The level withdrawal strategy. You can withdraw the IRA assets gradually and evenly over the entire 10 years. This keeps traditional IRA withdrawals from getting too big in any one year and putting you in a higher marginal income tax bracket. 

Option 2: Wait until the end of the 10-year period and then withdraw everything. This gives you more years of compounded tax-deferred or tax-free growth. But if your final traditional IRA distribution is large, you may have to pay a very high marginal income tax rate on the entire distribution as ordinary income. 

Exception: If the Original IRA Owner Already Started Taking RMDs Before Passing Away

If the original IRA owner passed away after reaching their required RMD beginning date (72 under current law), you can’t delay your IRA distributions.  Instead, you have to begin taking your annual distributions in years 1 to 9 and the entire remaining balance in year 10.

Option 3: Make irregular withdrawals over the 10-year period. This is a timing strategy. If your income is irregular, then you would take withdrawals from your inherited traditional IRA when your adjusted gross income is unusually low. If your income from other sources is unusually high that year, you may take a smaller distribution, or no distribution.

However, you must still empty the entire traditional IRA within ten years, unless the minor or disabled exception applies.

If you plan on moving from a high-tax state to a lower-tax state in the future, this could impact your decision-making. 

The best strategy to use depends on many different factors that will be individual to you. It’s a good idea to seek the services of a qualified tax professional who can walk you through the different scenarios and make a recommendation that’s best for your individual circumstances. 

To learn more about gold IRA tax rules and gold’s role in your portfolio, request your free gold IRA investor kit from Augusta Precious Metals here.

Appendix A 

IRS-Approved Physical Gold Coins for IRAs

Be reminded that the gold IRA tax rules dictate that not all gold coins, bars, or and physical precious metals are eligible for IRA investment. Instead, you may only hold specific forms of bullion that meet minimum requirements for purity and fineness.

With the exception of American Gold Eagles, all physical gold coin investments must be at least .995 pure, and be manufactured in a national mint, or one certified by NYMEX, NYSE/Liffe, LME, LPPM, COMEX, ISO 9000, or TOCOM. 

We would not recommend that you try to buy coins or other physical precious metals that do not meet this criteria for your IRA. Specifically, gold IRA tax rules dictate that the coins must be produced by a government mint or a private company that has been approved by the IRS, and they must meet a minimum fineness level of 99.5%. The coins must also be in uncirculated or proof condition, and they must be held by a custodian, rather than directly by the account owner.

With those requirements in mind, here are some of the most popular IRA eligible gold coins that are eligible as a gold investment within a self directed IRA:

• American Gold Eagle – The American Gold Eagle is a popular choice for gold IRAs. Produced by the United States Mint, these coins are made of 22-karat gold and are available in various sizes, including 1 oz, 1/2 oz, 1/4 oz, and 1/10 oz.

Note that the American Gold Eagle is only 22-karat gold, not 24-karat. Normally, physical 22-karat gold is not sufficiently fine to be eligible to hold in an IRA account. But Congress specifically exempted the American Gold Eagle from this requirement. 

• American Gold Buffalo – Another option produced by the United States Mint, the American Gold Buffalo is made of 24-karat gold and is available in a 1 oz size.

• Canadian Maple Leaf Coins – Produced by the Royal Canadian Mint, these gold coins are made of 24-karat gold and are available in various sizes, including 1 oz, 1/2 oz, 1/4 oz, 1/10 oz, and 1/20 oz.

• Australian Gold Kangaroo – Produced by the Perth Mint, the Australian Gold Kangaroo is made of 24-karat gold and is available in various sizes, including 1 oz, 1/2 oz, 1/4 oz, and 1/10 oz.

• Austrian Gold Philharmonic – Produced by the Austrian Mint, the Austrian Gold Philharmonic is made of 24-karat gold and is available in various sizes, including 1 oz, 1/2 oz, 1/4 oz, and 1/10 oz.

This is by no means an exhaustive list. There are many other possible candidates for inclusion in a gold IRA account, including: 

• Australian Gold Nuggets
• Australian Lunar Series
• British Gold Britannia (2013 and later)
• British Gold “Queen’s Beast” Coins
• Chinese Gold Pandas

Note: There are many gold coins and bars that are very popular amongst those interested to start investing in gold that are not allowable investments in IRAs. In fact, most gold investors are interested in coins made from a 22-karat gold alloy that’s only 91.67% gold, with the rest typically being copper and bronze. 

Since gold is a very soft metal, the higher the purity of the gold, the more prone it is to scuffing. The 22-karat gold alloy is commonly used in gold coins because it’s much more resistant to scratching, scuffing, and is more durable (i.e., resistant to wear and tear) than purer 24-karat gold coins. 

For example, the South African Krugerrand coin is made from the 22-karat crown gold alloy. It is not eligible for inclusion in an IRA account. 

Similarly, as explained above, the American Gold Eagle is also made from this alloy. Accordingly, it would normally not be allowed for an IRA account. However Congress, seeking to create a market for U.S. mined, minted, and manufactured gold, made an exception for the American Gold Eagle coin, allowing it to be held in IRA accounts.

The American Gold Buffalo coin, on the other hand, is made from 24-karat gold, manufactured to a fineness of .9999. And is, of course, authorized for a gold investment within a self directed IRA investment.

For more information about gold IRA tax rules, or adding physical gold and silver to your retirement, request your free “Ultimate Gold IRA Guide” from Augusta Precious Metals below.