buying gold as an investment

Buying Gold: How To Do It & Is It Reported To The IRS?

The idea of buying gold in order to save up for retirement has become quite popular in recent years. Of course, this option has been around for a while, but more and more people seem to be using it recently, which is why its popularity is on the rise. This is not a surprise, though, given that these investments seem to be quite beneficial. After all, gold is a rather valuable asset and, the best part is, it tends to hold its value, which is certainly a good thing.

If you have started thinking about buying gold as an investment too, then you are most likely interested in figuring out how to do it the right way. That is one of the questions that you need to have answered before embarking on this particular journey because you want to be absolutely sure that you’ll do everything correctly and that you won’t make any mistakes in this particular process. Well, learning about how to do this before actually taking any steps towards it is the responsible thing to do.

There is, however, one more question that you probably have on your mind whenever these investments are mentioned. In short, you are not quite sure whether these purchases should be reported to the IRS, because there is some quite contradicting information that you can find regarding that particular topic. All of the contradicting pieces of information are making you quite confused and that is preventing you from taking any final steps towards this.

Well, I certainly understand why you might be confused about this, but here’s some good news. We are now going to provide you with the answers to both of those questions and thus help you make your ultimate decision on whether you want to buy gold, as well as whether you should report it to the IRS. Of course, the first thing we are going to do is help you understand how to go through the actual purchasing process because that is undeniably the most significant thing you’ll need to learn if you’re thinking about doing this. So, let us take things one step at a time and start the learning process.

How To Buy Gold?

As mentioned, the first thing we are going to do here helps you learn what it is that you should do in order to be able to buy gold in the first place. There are a couple of important steps that you’ll have to take here. Skipping them is certainly not an option, because you won’t be able to complete any transactions or hold any precious metals whatsoever if you don’t take these significant steps, to begin with. So, let me tell you what you should do.

In the event that you’re not sure whether this is something you should do, however, you might want to read this and get a better idea about it: invest in gold 

The first thing you need to know is that you cannot use just any of your retirement accounts in order to make this particular investment. To put it differently, not all the accounts allow for the opportunity of buying gold or any other precious metals. This further means that there is a need for you to open up a specific account if you really want to do this, and it is called an SDIRA, or a self-directed IRA. You have most probably heard of this particular account already, so make sure to find out how to precisely open it, because that’s the one that will allow you to make this specific investment.

There is another requirement that you will absolutely need to meet when trying to do this. Basically, you will need to work with a custodian, which is an IRS-appointed company that will not only guide you through the entire investment process but also offer you some investing advice and some great storage options that you’ll certainly need once you start buying precious metals. So, make sure to find the perfect custodian, open the right account, fund it and start investing.

Is It Reported To The IRS?

Now that you understand how this particular investing process goes, it is time for us to proceed to the next important question that is certainly bothering you here. I have mentioned it above already, but let me repeat it, just in case you haven’t been paying attention to what I’ve been saying here. Basically, you are wondering whether you should report these particular purchases to the IRS. Answering this question is important because there are some tax implications that you need to be aware of and, of course, because you want to do everything by the book and not risk getting in trouble with the law. Click this if you need to learn more about the actual investing process.

As mentioned, there is some quite contradicting information that you can find regarding the necessity to report this purchase to the IRS and thus pay taxes. The bottom line is, though, that most of these purchases are reportable, but that does depend to a certain extent on the amount you are buying. Usually, even though gold transactions are not subject to certain specific rules that go for other transactions, you need to be aware of the fact that any cash payment transactions that are larger than $10,000 will automatically become a “cash reporting transaction”, meaning that you need to report it. The best thing to do is talk about this with your custodian and check the rules for your specific situation.