A missing Form 1099-B does not make a bullion sale tax-free. The IRS treats physical gold, silver, platinum, and palladium as collectibles. If you sell or swap at a paper profit, that gain goes on your return whether a dealer filed anything or not.
Coin sales generally dropped off the dealer-reporting list in the 2025 and 2026 Form 1099-B instructions. The tax on the gain did not.
What actually gets taxed
What you did
Dealer 1099-B likely?
Taxable if you have a paper gain?
Sold a few American Gold or Silver Eagles
Generally no
Yes
Sold a 1 kg gold bar, or 1,000 oz of .999 silver, in a 24-hour window
Often yes
Yes
Swapped gold bullion for silver, or bars for coins, and took no cash
Usually no
Yes. The swap is a sale.
Same swap inside a self-directed precious-metals IRA
No 1099-B to you
No current tax; tax hits on distribution
Sold inherited metal
Depends on form and size
Yes; basis usually stepped up, holding period long-term
Sold jewelry above what you paid
Generally no
Yes; personal-use losses usually not deductible
Report the sale on Form 8949 and Schedule D. Taxable amount is proceeds minus basis (price paid plus shipping and the dealer premium). A 1099-B, when one exists, usually shows proceeds, not what you paid. This article is federal income tax at sale, not state sales tax at purchase.
Why the 28% collectibles rate matters
Hold the metal more than one year and the federal long-term rate on the gain is the lesser of your ordinary bracket or 28% (IRS Topic 409). It is a ceiling. A filer in the 12% or 22% bracket does not jump to 28% because the asset is gold.
Hold it one year or less and there is no 28% cap. Short-term collectibles gains are ordinary income. For 2026 the top ordinary rate is still 37% (Rev. Proc. 2025-32).
Your 2026 ordinary bracket
Short-term bullion gain
Long-term bullion gain
10% / 12% / 22% / 24%
Same as ordinary
Same as ordinary
32% / 35% / 37%
Same as ordinary
28% cap
That is worse than long-term stock treatment (0%, 15%, or 20%). It is the same as stocks if you sell inside a year. Higher-income filers can also owe the 3.8% net investment income tax when MAGI exceeds $200,000 (single) or $250,000 (joint). Those thresholds are not indexed (Topic 559), so the combined federal long-term rate can reach 31.8% before state tax.
Bars, rounds, Eagles, Maples, Krugerrands, junk silver, and numismatics all sit in that bucket. So do grantor-trust metal ETFs (GLD, SLV). Mining stocks do not.
Sell 10 oz of gold for $43,386.60 at a 40% gain and 40% of the check is taxable. At the 28% cap, federal tax is about 11% of the sale, not 28% of the pile. If you cannot prove basis, the IRS can treat the entire proceeds as gain. Reconstruct from invoices, bank records, and historical spot plus a reasonable premium (Publication 551). Same math on 6,331.00 of silver, a tube of Eagles, or 90% junk. Product form does not change the collectibles classification. It can change whether a dealer files a 1099-B.
1099-B is a reporting form, not a tax
Dealers file Form 1099-B for some precious-metals sales. The 2026 instructions say a sale is not reportable if there is no CFTC-approved futures contract for that form of metal, or if the quantity is below the contract minimum. Sales to one customer in a 24-hour period are aggregated. Splitting a sale with a related person to dodge the form is still reportable.
Live physically delivered contracts that matter here include COMEX gold kilo (1 kg), COMEX gold 100 oz, COMEX 1,000 oz silver, and COMEX 5,000 oz silver. In June 2026 the IRS removed a 25-coin gold example that tracked a 1983 COMEX gold-coins contract no longer listed. The National Coin & Bullion Association pressed for that correction.
Coins (Eagles, Maples, Krugerrands, junk silver, numismatics) generally do not trigger a 1099-B. No active futures contract lists coins as deliverable. Bars in a futures-deliverable form and size still can. Tables that still list “25 one-ounce gold coins” are repeating the pulled example.
That is broker paperwork, not an exemption. Patrick Heller made the same point in Numismatic News in March 2026. Legal tender on an American Eagle does not make the gain tax-free. Face value is irrelevant. Proceeds minus basis is what counts.
If a dealer files, box 3 can be marked collectibles. Match the proceeds. Supply basis from your records.
IRS/FinCEN Form 8300 is separate: a business that receives more than $10,000 in cash (currency, or certain cashier’s checks on a retail collectibles sale) must file. For most stackers that is a cash purchase from a dealer, not the capital-gains filing when you sell. Personal checks are not cash for this form.
Swaps count as sales
Like-kind exchanges of personal property ended with the 2017 tax act. From January 1, 2018, §1031 covers real property only (IRS IR-2018-227). Gold bars for Gold Eagles, 100 oz silver for Eagles, gold for silver to play the ratio: those are taxable dispositions of what you gave up, even if no cash hits the account.
The exception is a self-directed precious-metals IRA. Trades inside the account do not create current tax. Take the metal home and you have a distribution (McNulty v. Commissioner, 2021). Eligible products are a narrow list: American Gold, Silver, and Platinum Eagles by statute, plus bullion that meets futures purity (.995 gold, .999 silver) and sits with a qualified custodian (IRC §408(m)(3)). A Krugerrand is not on that list.
Wash-sale disallowance under §1091 applies to stock and securities, not physical collectibles. You can sell bullion at a loss and buy it back the next day and still take the loss, subject to the $3,000 annual ordinary-income limit and carryforwards (Topic 409).
When this isn’t the right call
You have no gain. A capital loss on investment-held bullion can offset other gains. Jewelry and other personal-use items usually do not get that loss. Gains on jewelry still do. Run scrap through a gold melt-value calculator before you assume a profit.
You are days short of a year. A sale at 11 months can cost a high-bracket filer ordinary rates instead of the 28% cap. If the bid is stable, waiting is the move.
The only bid is a bar dump. A kilo gold bar or 1,000 oz of silver sold in one day is the classic 1099-B trigger. That does not make coins tax-free. Ask the dealer what they will file before you ship. Where you sell still matters more than the form. A 2% worse bid costs more than most 1099 paperwork.
You inherited the metal, or received it as a gift. Inherited bullion usually takes a step-up to fair market value on the date of death, and the holding period is automatically long-term (IRC §1223(11)). Gifted metal keeps the donor’s basis. Those two facts change the gain more than product choice does.
You bought over several years. Specific identification lets you sell a high-basis lot first. Without records, FIFO often dumps the oldest, cheapest metal. Identify lots in writing at the time of sale (Publication 550).
You are a dealer. Inventory is ordinary income, not collectibles capital gain. This article is for investors.
Dealer selection still beats format
A PAMP Suisse 1 oz bar and an American Gold Eagle are both collectibles. The bid is not. Compare live gold prices and silver prices before you sell. Shipping, insurance, and the spread are part of the round-trip, same as the tax on the gain.
Bottom Line
Plan the tax on the gain, not on whether a 1099-B shows up. Coins mostly dropped off dealer reporting after the 2026 1099-B correction. The 28% collectibles ceiling (or your lower bracket) did not. Swaps are sales. IRAs defer. Invoices are how you prove basis. Get the bid right first, then file the gain.
This is general information for bullion investors, not tax, legal, or accounting advice. Rules depend on your facts, filing status, and state. Confirm with a qualified tax professional before you sell or swap a position.
