Louisiana gold and silver money law

Louisiana Revised Statutes 47:301(16)(b)(ii) excludes three categories from the definition of taxable "tangible personal property": platinum, gold, or silver bullion valued solely on its precious metal content in coin or ingot form, which carries no purity number and no dollar limit; numismatic coins with a sales price of no more than 1,000 dollars; and numismatic coins sold at a national, statewide, or multi-parish numismatic trade show regardless of price. Bullion sold for its metal content is unconditionally excluded from the tax base. Numismatic and collectible coins are excluded only up to the 1,000 dollar figure unless the sale happens at a qualifying trade show, so an ordinary numismatic coin purchase above that price outside such a show remains taxable. The exclusion also covers only platinum, gold, and silver; copper and palladium bullion or coin receive no exclusion at all and are taxed as ordinary tangible personal property. Because a normal purchase, either a numismatic coin priced above 1,000 dollars away from a trade show, or a palladium or copper bullion purchase of any kind, can fail this exclusion, this record classes Louisiana as a partial exemption. Note the direction of the 1,000 dollar figure. It is a ceiling, not a floor: a purchase qualifies by being small enough, and fails by being large. It is recorded in transactionMaximum for that reason, and transactionMinimum is deliberately left unset, because Louisiana imposes no minimum purchase size and a comparison that read the figure as a floor would invert the state's position. The partial classification here rests on the category limits described above rather than on any threshold field.

Maximum purchase. 1,000 dollars on numismatic coins: a numismatic coin sold for 1,000 dollars or less is excluded from tax, one sold above that price is taxable unless the sale takes place at a national, statewide, or multi-parish numismatic trade show. Platinum, gold, and silver bullion sold for its metal content carries no dollar limit at any price. Louisiana has no transaction floor, and no purity threshold, so neither of those fields is populated.

Gold and silver are recognized as legal tender in Louisiana and that recognition is in force.

La. R.S. 6:341, created by Act 396 of 2024 (SB232), effective August 1, 2024, and amended by Act 304 of 2025 (HB695), effective August 1, 2025

Louisiana taxes capital gains from the sale of bullion or coin as ordinary income, with no precious metals specific exemption. Act 11 of the 2024 Third Extraordinary Session repealed the state's graduated individual income tax brackets and replaced them with a flat 3 percent rate beginning January 1, 2025. The same act also repealed a preexisting general "net capital gain deduction." The Department of Revenue's legislative summary lists that repeal by name among the deductions Act 11 eliminated and gives it no description, so this record does not characterize what the repealed deduction covered beyond noting that it was a general income tax provision and not a precious metals measure.

Louisiana's sales tax treatment of bullion predates its legal tender law by seven years. House Bill 396 of 2017 restructured R.S. 47:301(16)(b)(ii), the definition that excludes certain items from Louisiana's sales tax base. The enrolled bill shows an older, narrower exclusion struck through and replaced with the structure still in force: platinum, gold, or silver bullion valued solely on its precious metal content, whether coin or ingot, is excluded from tax at any price; numismatic coins are excluded only up to a 1,000 dollar sales price; and numismatic coins sold at a qualifying trade show are excluded regardless of price. Copper and palladium were never added and remain fully taxable. Governor John Bel Edwards signed the act on June 22, 2017, and the official history records that same day as its effective date; the October 1, 2017 date often attached to this law is when the three exclusions began applying to the specific state sales tax levies in R.S. 47:302 and 321.1, not when the act itself took effect. Because ordinary purchases, an expensive numismatic coin bought outside a trade show, or any amount of palladium or copper bullion, can fall outside this structure, this record treats Louisiana's exemption as partial rather than full.

Louisiana recognized gold and silver as legal tender starting in 2024. Senate Bill 232, sponsored by Senator Mark Abraham, created R.S. 6:341, providing that gold or silver coin, specie, or bullion issued by any state or the federal government as legal tender is recognized as legal tender in Louisiana, with no one required to offer or accept it except as a contract requires. The Senate passed it 39 to 0, the House 92 to 1, and the Senate concurred in the House amendments 38 to 0; Governor Jeff Landry signed it as Act 396, effective August 1, 2024.

Representative Raymond Crews filed two more ambitious bills in that same 2024 session, and neither passed. House Bill 714 would have created a full statutory framework at R.S. 6:1061 and following, letting the treasurer issue gold and silver specie as currency, contract with a bullion depository of another state or a private vendor, act as trustee, and run depository accounts. House Bill 929 would have required the treasurer to write rules regulating gold and silver bullion as currency, including rules providing for a bullion depository and accounts with it. The official bill histories show both stalled at the same place: each was referred to the House Committee on Commerce and each is still listed as "Pending House Commerce." House Bill 714 was considered in committee on March 25, 2024 and two committee amendments were drafted, but the official history records no committee vote on either bill and neither reached the House floor. This record makes no claim about a recorded committee vote count, because the legislature's own record shows none. Neither bill text mentions the Texas Bullion Depository or a debit card, so the account sometimes given of a treasurer backed debit card scheme with metals warehoused in Texas is not something this record can source and is not repeated here.

Crews returned in 2025 with a much narrower bill, House Bill 695, which did pass as Act 304. It rewrote one sentence of R.S. 6:341(A), and the enrolled act, rendered to an image rather than read through text extraction, shows the edits going in two directions at once. "Issued" was struck and "recognized" put in its place, and the words "any state or" were struck as well, while a new clause recognizing "any gold-backed debit instrument that can convert gold in a depository to fiat currency" was inserted. The result is not simply a looser test. Louisiana's legal tender provision now reaches only gold or silver coin, specie, or bullion recognized by the United States government, where before it also reached anything issued by any state. Specie issued by another state, which the 2024 law covered, dropped out. The act does not create, license, or define any depository; it treats one as an input to the debit instrument mechanism rather than establishing a state facility. The House passed the bill 84 to 0 and the Senate 39 to 0, and it took effect August 1, 2025. Louisiana has no bullion depository of its own, state run or otherwise licensed, in force.

Louisiana has no precious metals specific exemption from its income tax. Gains from selling bullion or coin are taxed as ordinary income. Act 11 of the 2024 Third Extraordinary Session eliminated the state's graduated income tax brackets in favor of a flat 3 percent rate beginning January 1, 2025, and separately repealed a general "net capital gain deduction." The Department of Revenue's summary of the act lists that repeal by name without describing what the deduction covered, so this record says only that it was a general income tax provision unrelated to precious metals.