Commodity Gold is Not Money in the USA
Stevebidmead, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Note: This article is a follow-up to a previous article I wrote called “No, Africa Is Not Moving Toward a Gold-Backed Currency, and Neither Is Anyone Else.” Reader comments suggested that people had a lot of questions about how commodity gold is not money or currency, and this article will address some of them.
While the U.S. federal government does not mandate gold as legal tender for general transactions, several states have laws that recognize gold as legal tender. These laws typically apply to government-minted gold coins, not commodity gold. States like Utah, Texas, and Louisiana have enacted legislation allowing U.S. Mint gold and silver coins to be used in transactions and exempting them from state capital gains taxes.
