IRA gold bought and held in an IRA with IRA money is NOT a “distribution” of US currency to be called... INCOME!
This should NOT stand on appeal or anywhere else. They did NOT sell the GOLD and convert it to cash, which would THEN be required to be declared as income.
This is a Byzantine judge. Has to get sorted out from the FDR notion that one cannot hold or own physical gold. It just ain’t so.
and yeah- imaging 80K go for it punk IRS “agents” hovering like invasive wasps in a beehive. Time to warm them up to cook temperature... with LEGAL facts. This is NOT distributed income.
The issue at hand was that the gold was not held by a third party, it was in the physical control of the couple.
You cannot withdraw your 401K as a stack of $100 bills and stuff it in your mattress and still call it a 401K.
This judge feels that taking physical delivery of the gold and storing it in a home safe was the same thing.
The lady according to the article chose to sell the coins from the IRA for the market value, forced by the “laws” as the IRS decides them— to do so. And thus forced to pay a tax on would guess not only the distribution cash value but also on the increase.
Unless this was a Roth IRA. Researching the implications there vs. a Trad IRA holding physical gold where the money going in was not taxed but doubly taxed “coming out” so to speak.
Ok. So each of us can create an LLC, manage it, and buy precious metals to hold in the LLC without being taxed, for ultimate distribution to the creator who then has a tax liability.