March 2021 Numismatic Legislation Review
Every month we look at the numismatic legislation that Congress worked on the previous month. Since the 117th Congress is only three months into its first session, most of the legislative action is introducing bills.
Nowadays, Congress members do not have to drop their papers into the hopper in their respective chambers. Bills are submitted electronically. To prove that they are doing something, these legislators also post the bill on their official websites. Inevitably, an intern or low-level staffer makes a mistake that gets misinterpreted by the press, making it sound like a bill has been passed. According to the Government Printing Office, there has been no numismatic-related bill that has made it past its committee assignment.
A few days ago, Rep. Alexander Mooney (R-WV) introduced H.R. 2285, a bill “To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to clarify that gain or loss on the sale or exchange of certain coins or bullion is exempt from recognition.” Although this bill’s text has yet to be published, the title suggests that it will make the sale of coins and bullion exempt from capital gains taxes.
Currently, collectors who sell items from their collections are required to pay capital gains taxes on the profit from the sale of their coins. If you bought a coin for $100,000 then sell it for $150,000, the capital gains tax is applied to the $50,000 profit. Under the 2020 rate schedule, that is a 0% tax, except if you bought the coin within the last year, it is taxed as part of your regular income. But if you bought the coin for $50,000 before 2020 and sold it for $150,000 in 2020, then the $100,000 profit is taxed at 15%.
Are you confused? This is why the potential of eliminating the capital gains tax on coins and bullion will help the industry.
Here is the list of the eight bills introduced in March 2021.
H.R. 1648: To require the Secretary of the Treasury to mint coins in recognition and celebration of the National Women’s Hall of Fame.
S. 672: A bill to amend title 31, United States Code, to save Federal funds by authorizing changes to the composition of circulating coins, and for other purposes.
H.R. 1842: To require the Secretary of the Treasury to mint commemorative coins in recognition of the Bicentennial of Harriet Tubman’s birth.
H.R. 1789: To amend title 31, United States Code, to save Federal funds by authorizing changes to the composition of circulating coins, and for other purposes.
S. 697: A bill to require the Secretary of the Treasury to mint commemorative coins in recognition of the Bicentennial of Harriet Tubman’s birth.
H.R. 1900: To require the Secretary of the Treasury to mint coins in commemoration of the health care professionals, first responders, scientists, researchers, all essential workers, and individuals who provided care and services during the coronavirus pandemic.
S. 867: A bill to require the Secretary of the Treasury to mint coins in recognition and celebration of the National Women’s Hall of Fame.
H.R. 2284: To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to clarify that gain or loss on the sale or exchange of certain coins or bullion is exempt from recognition.
Welcome to the NEW Coin Collectors Blog
When the Coin Collectors Blog reached its 10th Anniversary I decided it was time for a little sprucing up. It was time to paint the wall and update the furniture to make it comfortable while keeping the original charm.
Redesigns take time whether it is in your home or a website. As I have done for during the last 10 years I have been writing this blog, I did the work myself. Although my background is more technical than design—think of me as someone who would rather work on an engine than body or interior work of a car—I can enjoy stepping out of my comfort zone and do a little body work, too.
Without further ado, here are some of the things that this change offers:
- With the growth of mobile devices I had to do something that would allow the blog to better appear on those smaller screens. In the vernacular of the web, this is called “responsive design,” which is design that responds to its environment. What you see should work better on your mobile devices.
- All advertising has been removed. I added the advertising because I was being asked and thought it would help cover the hosting fees. Unfortunately, my hosting fees were more then I collected and I do not have time to manage this properly. Thank you to all my past advertisers but it is time we move on.
- I changed the way to contact me to use a form. This will help those who use web-based mail services.
- The social media sharing has changed. You can still share my posts on social media, and you are encouraged to do so. Rather than use a third-party to do the sharing the links will send you directly to those social media sites. As someone concerned with privacy I thought this was a better option!
Although I decided to keep the same color scheme, I made the layout simpler. Aside from helping with the responsive design, it is fashionable to have simpler and cleaner designs. It is difficult to update a live website without having a few stumbles. If you see something that is not right send me an email note or comment below with the information.
Happy Collecting!
Happy 2016!
2016 Mark Twain $5 Gold Commemorative
2016 National Park Service Centennial Commemorative with images of John Muir and Theodore Roosevelt
One last update for the year
Yesterday I installed software that works in the background in order to improve the internals of the blog. While most of it should be invisible to the readers of the blog, it adds additional functionality. You should not notice anything different until I make the other changes. If you do, please let me know!
Part of this package allows me to better capture demographic statistics about when you read what I write. I am NOT collecting your personal information and I will NOT sell any of the data I collect. The statistics will help form a broad network-related demographic profile of my readership. I will learn how many people read my writing, when they read it, from which country you are reading this from (based on your IP address, which is then discarded after doing the lookup), and best-guess from where you came from to read my writing (e.g., are you subscribed to the RSS feed? subscribed via email, from Twitter, a search engine, etc.). All this software is doing is keeping tallies. NO individual information is saved!
This package has other features that I will be taking advantage of with the next upgrade.
In addition to watching football, do some paperwork, and going to a cruise-in, I plan to do more upgrades this weekend. If you see a page that says the site is under construction, then stay tuned for the upgrade!!
Until then… HAPPY NEW YEAR!
NEW FEATURE: Numismatic Dictionary
Have you ever been looking for a numismatic term and have run across these long pages of words?
Isn’t it frustrating to have to scan that entire page looking for the term or even similar terms?
Fear not! I introduce to you my new Numismatic Dictionary!
While it may look like a just a list of numismatic terms it is better. At the top of the page is a search box. Type in the term you are looking for an every definition where that term appears will be displayed.
Go ahead… give it a try. For example, if someone keeps using the term slider but you are not sure what it means, search for it!
You are told that someone will meet you on the bourse floor. The what? Where is the bourse floor? Just search for it to figure out what they are talking about!
Did you find an entry that says “See also” or “Synonym for?” Rather than making you type a new search, those terms are clickable links. Don’t type, just click! I think this is pretty neat stuff!!
Just about every term I can think of is in that list. If it isn’t, just contact me and let me know. Feel free to send corrections, too.
Stay tuned… I have a few more tricks up my sleeve that will be showing up very soon!
Transportation Silver Eagles
At the end of my last report on how the recent transportation bill will have an effect on coin collectors, I said that I would discuss how the new law will impact American Silver Eagle collectors. After taking a little time off for holiday festivities, we are going to look at the impact and unintended consequences of congress.
To review, earlier this month congress passed and the president signed the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act or the “FAST Act” (H.R. 22; now Public Law 114-94). It is a comprehensive transportation bill that is over 490 pages long with one third of those paged dedicated to items other than transportation. Buried deep in the document is Title LXXIII, “Bullion and Collectible Coin Production Efficiency and Cost Savings” section. For today’s post, we look at Section 73002:
Sec. 73002. American Eagle Silver Bullion 30th Anniversary
Proof and uncirculated versions of coins issued by the Secretary of the Treasury pursuant to subsection (e) of section 5112 of title 31, United States Code, during calendar year 2016 shall have a smooth edge incused with a designation that notes the 30th anniversary of the first issue of coins under such subsection.
If you are not familiar with “subsection (e) of section 5112 of title 31, United States Code” (31 U.S.C. § 5112(e)), it is the part of the law that authorizes the American Silver Eagle program. It says that these coins are to 40.6 millimeters in diameter containing 31.103 grams (one troy ounce) of .999 fine silver with a symbolic design of Liberty on the obverse and an eagle on the reverse.
Along with the prescribed elements the coin will have a reeded edge. It is this reeded edge requirement that may be causing a problem.
As written, Section 73002 does not say that the 2016 coin with a smooth edge with an inscription designating as the 30th anniversary of the first issue is for a special collectible. It is written as a blanket statement for all coins issued in 2016. Because of the word issued, the U.S. Mint is going to cancel the 2015 Limited Edition Silver Proof set.
2014 Limited Edition Silver Set (LS3) will be on sale until December 30, 2015 at noon.
However, that word “issued” causes a problem. If the coins are part of a packaging production, the coins may not have been struck in 2016 but the sets are being issued in 2016, then the 2015 could be violating the law. It is that ambiguity in a law passed by congress that will cause the 2015 Limited Edition Silver Proof set from being released.
Sausage making at its finest!
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