...Any armchair lawyers in the group ? Tom ?
Haha. As long as you don't mean "armchair" in a derisive sense. Doh! Because, read and weep, I'm only quoting what the IRS and *real* lawyers themselves said about the case you're referring to:
Couple That Found $10 Million in Gold Coins Will Have to Hand Over HOW MUCH in Taxes? ? TheBlaze
As you can see in that article:
a) They are taxable WHETHER OR NOT SOLD, and ...
b) no, they're not taxed at the face value ($5, $10, $20, etc...) of each coin. They're taxed on the MARKET VALUE.
Not saying I like it either. And sure, I suppose someone could "try to keep it a secret" and sell them on-the-sly, and off-the-books. But there are pitfalls to that: If someone who's paying you, pays over $600 in a calendar year, they might elect to follow the laws on their end, and issue you a 1099. Then the govt. will "come looking for you" at tax season asking for their cut. So to be "off-the-books", you'd have to make sure that whomever you're selling to is not reporting it (or "cooking books" on their end).
In my company for example, we could be subject to an audit . And it's *possible* (though not likely) that an auditor could "flag" payments to an individual, and want to see proof of what those outgoing $$ went to. And if they were items that *should* have been subject to a 1099, then *theoretically* we could be asked to fix up the records (along with whatever hand-slap accompanied it). And thus, I suppose, a year or two later, the IRS could be appraised of $$ that went to particular destinations (buying gold coins). And then , in theory, someone could come knocking on the md'rs door even years later. But all this is sort of a remote "follow the dots" sort of thing. And I could imagine would only occur in big ticket money transactions.
