Wyoming gold and silver money law

Wyoming does not exempt bullion through a conventional sales tax exemption clause. Instead, W.S. 39-15-101(a)(xxxi)(A) and the parallel property tax definition at 39-11-105(b)(vi)(A) define intangible personal property to include "money and cash on hand including currency, gold, silver and other coin, specie and specie legal tender as provided in W.S. 9-4-1304". Wyoming's sales tax under 39-15-103(a)(i)(A) is levied only on retail sales of tangible personal property, so anything defined as intangible falls outside the tax's reach entirely rather than being affirmatively exempted from it. The reach of that list is easy to understate. "Specie" is defined in the Wyoming Legal Tender Act as coin having gold or silver content, or refined gold or silver bullion that is coined, stamped, or imprinted with its weight and purity, so the specie route covers gold and silver only. The list does not stop at specie, however: it separately reaches "other coin", and on the face of the statute a platinum or palladium coin is other coin. This record therefore does not claim that platinum and palladium are taxable across the board. What "other coin" cannot reach is a bar. A platinum or palladium ingot, round, or unminted bar is neither coin nor gold or silver specie, so it stays ordinary tangible personal property and is taxable, and bulk gold or silver that has not been coined, stamped, or imprinted with its weight and purity falls outside the specie definition on the same reasoning. Because an ordinary retail purchase of a platinum or palladium bar fails this framework entirely, a category limit a normal bullion purchase can fail, this record classes Wyoming as a partial rather than a full exemption. No purity number and no dollar minimum appear anywhere in the mechanism, which is why neither structured threshold field is populated. This record located no Wyoming Department of Revenue guidance construing "other coin" as applied to platinum or palladium, so the reach of that phrase is stated from the statutory text alone.

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

W.S. 9-4-1301 through 9-4-1305, the "Wyoming Legal Tender Act," created by 2018 House Bill 103 (Enrolled Act No. 46, House), effective July 1, 2018

Wyoming has no individual or corporate income tax of any kind, so there is no capital gains tax on precious metals or anything else to exempt. The Wyoming Legal Tender Act separately and redundantly provides, at W.S. 9-4-1304(b) and (c), that exchanging one form of legal tender for another, and purchasing, selling, or exchanging specie in any form, creates no tax liability, but this matters more for property and any future tax than for income, since no state income tax exists to apply it against.

Wyoming's "Wyoming Legal Tender Act," House Bill 103 of 2018, created a five section article, now W.S. 9-4-1301 through 9-4-1305, recognizing specie, meaning gold or silver coin or bullion coined, stamped, or imprinted with its weight and purity, as voluntary legal tender. No one may be compelled to tender or accept specie except as a contract requires, and the act bars treating specie as personal property for property taxation. The House passed the bill 44 to 14 and the Senate 25 to 5; it became law without further action on March 14, 2018 and took effect that July 1.

The same act reaches Wyoming's sales tax through an unusual route. Rather than adding an exemption clause to the sales tax article, it amended the definition of "intangible personal property" in both the property tax and sales tax titles to include specie and specie legal tender. Wyoming's sales tax is levied only on retail sales of tangible personal property, so classifying specie as intangible removes it from the tax's reach rather than carving out an exemption from a tax that would otherwise apply. The Department of Revenue's own materials on sales tax exemptions distinguish "not taxable," meaning there is no imposition statute reaching the item at all, from a true "exemption," where an imposition statute applies but the legislature has excused certain sales from it. Specie sits in the first category.

That mechanism is narrower than a clean exemption, but not as narrow as it is often described. The intangible property definition does not name only gold and silver. It reads "currency, gold, silver and other coin, specie and specie legal tender", and "other coin" on its face takes in a platinum or palladium coin, so this record does not say that platinum and palladium buyers are taxed across the board. The limit is form rather than metal. "Specie" is defined as gold or silver coin, or gold or silver bullion coined, stamped, or imprinted with its weight and purity, so a platinum or palladium bar, being neither coin nor gold or silver specie, stays ordinary taxable tangible personal property, and so does bulk gold or silver carrying no weight and purity mark. Because an ordinary retail purchase of a platinum or palladium bar fails the framework outright, this record treats Wyoming's sales tax position as a partial rather than a full exemption. No Wyoming Department of Revenue guidance construing "other coin" for platinum or palladium turned up, so that reading rests on the statutory text by itself.

A 2020 bill, House Bill 198, would have gone further and created a state operated "Wyoming bullion depository" as a division of the state auditor's office. It was never taken up for an introduction vote and died in February 2020. No Wyoming bullion depository exists. In 2025, Senate File 96 amended the Legal Tender Act again, this time to direct the state treasurer, not to build a depository, but to hold at least ten million dollars of specie and specie legal tender inside the state's permanent mineral trust fund as an investment diversification measure. Governor Mark Gordon declined to sign it. The Legislative Service Office's official record for the bill shows it "Became Law without Signature" on February 24, 2025, taking Chapter 42 and Senate Enrolled Act No. 13, and the DATE APPROVED line on the enrolled act itself is blank. Its own text delayed the treasurer's ten million dollar holding requirement until January 1, 2026, a date that has since arrived. A separate, immediately effective section directed the department of revenue to study whether the state could begin accepting gold and silver as payment, with findings due to legislative committees by October 1, 2025.

Wyoming has no individual or corporate income tax, so gains from selling precious metals were never subject to a state capital gains tax to begin with, independent of anything the Legal Tender Act says.