Know Before You Sell: Bullion Sales the IRS Requires Us to Report

Reporting Requirements : Selling to Us

What we are required to tell the government

When you sell to us

These reporting requirements cover when a dealer has to tell the IRS that you sold something to it. The form is Form 1099-B, and it exists so the IRS can check the gains people declare. Filing it does not settle your tax position either way: whether or not we file, you still owe tax on any gain. Take advice from a tax professional about your own sale. What follows is how we apply the IRS rules when you sell to us.

Guidelines:

• Only certain coins and bars can trigger a Form 1099-B, and only above a set fineness and quantity
• A sale below that quantity is not reportable, however much it is worth in dollars

Bars and Coins that require the issuance of a 1099-B

We do not report 90% silver coinage — dimes, quarters or half dollars — at any quantity. The current test asks whether the metal is in a form a CFTC-approved futures contract will take, and no listed contract takes 90% coin.

Whether or not we file a 1099-B, take advice from a tax professional on your own position. The test the IRS applies to precious metals is not a dollar amount. Under the Instructions for Form 1099-B (2026), a sale of gold, silver, platinum or palladium is reportable only if the metal is in a form the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has approved for trading by regulated futures contract, and only if the quantity reaches the minimum a contract for that metal calls for. Sales to one customer inside a 24-hour period are added together before the test is applied.

That is why nothing in the table above is a price. The tests are fineness, weight, coin count or face value, which is why a sale can be large in cash and still unreportable.

One-ounce American Gold Eagles, Gold Buffalos and Silver Eagles are not 1099-B reportable. None of the three is one of the coin forms the 25-coin rows above cover — the Maple Leaf, the Krugerrand and the Mexican Onza — and a one-ounce piece sits below the bar minimum for its metal, so neither test above catches it. Bars without an approved brand mark, scrap gold and semi-numismatic coins sit outside the rule as well.

Sources. The reporting test, the 25-coin example and the 24-hour aggregation rule are taken from the IRS Instructions for Form 1099-B (2026), which are the authority for when we file. The return itself is Form 1099-B. The quantities in the table are the delivery minimums that test measures against. Nothing on this page is tax advice.