This couple found some other family's money and were lucky enough to keep half of it.
So I'm not crying for them.
And you can bet that if they had not told the authorities about it and kept it secret, they would have gotten ripped off and wound up with well less than their true value.
If they had gone to "cash for gold" places and sold them one by one, they would probably have got $1.5mm tops.
If they had gone to the same place multiple times, they might have wound up getting followed and getting robbed.
If they had gone to coin shops, the collecting community would have gotten wind of what was going on and it would all come out anyway.
The tax code is nnsense, but these people aren't special.
Perhaps not, but don't you think a system where the government just automatically assumes that half of whatever you have belongs to them? By what right? What did the government do to afford this opportunity? You can talk about the infrastructure and what not, but the value of that is dubious at best.