Oklahoma gold and silver money law

Sales of gold, silver, platinum, palladium, or other bullion items such as coins and bars, and legal tender of any nation sold according to its value as precious metal or as an investment, are exempt from Oklahoma sales tax. There is no purity threshold and no minimum purchase amount. There is also no requirement that the metal be stored in a depository: the statute once carried one, and Senate Bill 862 of 2014 struck both that storage requirement and the definition of a depository facility out of the exemption paragraph. The exemption does not apply to fabricated metals processed or manufactured for artistic use or as jewelry, a limit that survived the 2014 amendment. The Oklahoma Tax Commission's current administrative rule matches the statute on all of these points.

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

62 O.S. Section 4500

No state-level exemption for precious metals. Oklahoma taxes capital gains as part of ordinary state income at its regular graduated rates.

Oklahoma declared United States issued gold and silver coin legal tender through Senate Bill 862 of 2014. The enacted text, now codified at 62 O.S. Section 4500, is narrow: it recognizes the coins as legal tender but expressly states that no person may be compelled to tender or accept them except by agreement. The Governor approved the bill on June 4, 2014, and it took effect that November.

The same bill rewrote paragraph 42 of Oklahoma's general sales tax exemption statute, 68 O.S. Section 1357, which exempts sales of gold, silver, platinum, palladium, or other bullion items, including coins and bars and legal tender of any nation sold for its precious metal value. The version of that paragraph in force before 2014 required exempt bullion to be stored within a recognized depository facility. Senate Bill 862 deleted that requirement. The enrolled bill shows the storage sentence and the definition of a depository facility both struck through, while the definition of bullion and the exclusion of fabricated metals made for artistic use or as jewelry were left standing. The result is a statutory exemption with no depository condition, no purity threshold, and no transaction minimum, which is also how the Oklahoma Tax Commission has written its own rule.

Oklahoma has no capital gains carve-out for precious metals. Gains from selling bullion or coin are taxed as ordinary income under the state's regular graduated income tax rates, the same as any other capital gain.