What Investors and Dealers Should Know About Selling Bullion

CLARIFYING SOME OF THE RULES FOR IRS FORM 1099-B

- BY MIKE GAROFALO

Bullion, such as gold, silver, platinum and palladium, is readily liquid and can easily be sold to coin or bullion dealers, jewelers or pawn shops, whether in person or online.

It is relatively easy to sell these items and to obtain a fair price once you determine the amount and purity of the precious metals you are selling and the current Spot prices (what a precious metal is worth right now or “on the spot”) for the actual metals you own. I recommend that you compare buying prices from a variety of different trusted dealers or sources. That's the easy part.

If your holdings include fairly common bullion items such as one or more bags of 90% silver pre-1965 U.S. dimes, quarters or half dollars, multiples of South African gold Krugerrands, Canadian gold or silver Maple Leaf coins, or any other worldwide bullion coinage, you would need to negotiate the price for those items.

Likely, at any time during the past three decades, the purchasing dealer would look at the “Items to Be Reported List” to verify whether any of your items were on that list. This list was what virtually every precious metals dealer in the United States used to determine whether or not he had to issue to the seller and to the Internal Revenue Service a copy of IRS Form 1099-B, “Proceeds from Broker and Barter Exchange Transactions.” This list has been used by coin and bullion dealers as well as collectors and investors since the inception of Revenue Procedure 92-103, more than 30 years ago.