Utah gold and silver money law

Sales of currency or coin that constitute legal tender of a state, the United States, or a foreign nation are fully exempt from Utah sales and use tax regardless of price. Gold, silver, or platinum ingots, bars, medallions, decorative coins, or notes, leaf, foil, or film used as currency that are not legal tender are also exempt, but only if their gold, silver, or platinum content is 50 percent or more. Items below that threshold, and items such as jewelry or accessory pieces, remain taxable. Because the exemption for non-legal-tender bullion is gated behind a purity test, this record classes Utah as a partial exemption, the same classification given to Florida, though Utah's 50 percent bar is far easier to clear than Florida's 99.5 and 99.9 percent bars.

Purity condition. 50 percent gold, silver, or platinum content for non-legal-tender bullion items

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

Utah Code 59-1-1502

Utah Code 59-10-1028 allows a nonrefundable individual income tax credit equal to the net capital gain on exchanges of one form of legal tender for another, multiplied by the individual income tax rate in Section 59-10-104(2). Because the credit is the gain multiplied by the tax rate, it cancels the state income tax on those gains rather than merely reducing it, which is why this record marks the gain as exempt. The mechanism is narrower than a general bullion exemption in two ways. It applies only to exchanges of legal tender for legal tender, not to sales of precious metal bullion generally, and it is nonrefundable and may not be carried forward or back, so it cannot offset tax on any other income. It applies to taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2012.

Utah was the first state in the current wave of sound money legislation to declare gold and silver legal tender. House Bill 317, the Currency Amendments act of 2011, recognized gold and silver coin issued by the federal government as legal tender in the state, exempted exchanges of that coin from certain state tax liability, and directed a legislative committee to study further monetary options. Governor Gary Herbert signed it on March 25, 2011, and it took effect that May.

A 2012 follow up bill, also titled Currency Amendments, rewrote the 2011 act into what is now codified as the Specie Legal Tender Act, Utah Code Title 59, Chapter 1, Part 15. Its sales tax exemption for currency or coin that is legal tender already reached legal tender of the United States or of a foreign nation; the 2012 bill added legal tender of a state to that list. Separately, it lowered the purity bar for exempt non-legal-tender bullion items, such as bars and rounds, from 80 percent to 50 percent precious metal content, and broadened the definition of what does not count as legal tender for that purity-tested category from any nation to a state, the United States, or a foreign nation. A 2024 amendment to the same part added that a central bank digital currency is not specie legal tender and is not legal tender in the state.

The capital gains treatment works through a nonrefundable income tax credit rather than a blanket exclusion. Utah Code 59-1-1503 states that a credit is allowed as provided in Section 59-10-1028 for a capital gain on a transaction exchanging one form of legal tender for another. Section 59-10-1028 sets the amount: the net capital gain on those exchanges multiplied by the individual income tax rate in Section 59-10-104(2). The credit therefore zeroes the state tax on such a gain, but it reaches only legal tender for legal tender exchanges, it cannot be carried forward or back, and it does nothing for an ordinary sale of precious metal bullion.