Wisconsin has formally removed sales taxes on gold and silver.

The Wisconsin Responding to an incredible tsunami of grassroots demand, Gov. Tony Evers today signed a bill into law that ensures Wisconsin’s place as the 44th state in America by removing sales taxes on the purchase of precious metals.

Assembly Bill 29 and Senate Bill 33, carried by Rep. Sortwell and Sen. Stroebel, respectively, garnered significant bipartisan support in both chambers of the Wisconsin legislature before they landed on Gov. Evers’ desk.

Backed by the Sound Money Defense League, the Money Metals Exchange, and in-state Wisconsin dealers and investors, the legislative push expanded upon last year’s educational campaign. In 2023, similar proposals had been presented in Madison but failed to obtain a hearing.

The new statewide sales tax exemption on bullion coins, bars, or rounds (minted of gold or silver, but also platinum, palladium, or copper) takes formal effect on Saturday, March 23rd.

“As inflation ravages American families, Wisconsin has taken an important step toward remonetizing gold and silver, a proven inflation hedge and the only form of money mentioned in the U.S. Constitution,” said J.P. Cortez, executive director of the Sound Money Defense League.

Every one of Wisconsin’s neighbors (Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, and Michigan) had already stopped taxing the monetary metals, a circumstance that heaped more pressure on the Badger State.

Meanwhile, other states have started abolishing this sales tax in recent years: Mississippi in 2023, Tennessee in 2022, and Arkansas and Ohio in 2021. Other states may yet enact similar exclusions this year.

In reaction to Gov. Evers signing the bill into law today, Sen. Stroebel said, “I am proud to have played a leading role in the effort to finally add Wisconsin to the long list of [tax-exempt] states. Unlike other common financial instruments, gold and silver are explicitly defined as money in the U.S. Constitution.”

He continued, “The signing of AB 29 removes a key barrier for Wisconsinites seeking to build and protect their wealth and puts gold and silver on an equal footing with other types of investment vehicles.”

Until now, Wisconsin citizens have been discouraged from preserving their money from the devaluation of the dollar because they were penalized with sales taxation for doing so. Eliminating sales taxes on monetary metals is beneficial public policy for many reasons:

Levying sales taxes on precious metals is incorrect. Sales taxes are often applied to final consumer items. Computers, clothes, and shoes carry sales taxes since the consumer is “consuming” the goods. Precious metals are inherently held for resale, not “consumption,” making the application of sales taxes on precious metals incorrect. Studies have revealed that taxing precious metals is an inefficient means of revenue collection.

The results of one study involving U.S. reveal that any sales tax gains a state obtains on precious metals are likely eclipsed by the state money lost from conventions, firms, and economic activity that are driven out of the state.
Taxing gold and silver affects in-state enterprises. It’s a competitive economy; therefore, buyers will take their enterprises to adjacent states, thereby hurting in-state jobs.

Investors can easily avoid paying $120 in sales taxes, for example, on a $2,200 purchase of a one-ounce gold bar.
Taxing precious metals is unjust to certain savers and investors. Gold and silver are retained as means of savings and investment.

Wisconsin already does not tax the purchase of stocks, bonds, ETFs, currencies, and other financial products.
Taxing precious metals is damaging to people wanting to protect their holdings. Purchasers of precious metals aren’t fat-cat investors.

Most people who buy precious metals do it in small amounts as a way of saving money. Precious metals investors are purchasing precious metals as a strategy to secure their money from the impact of inflation. Inflation impacts the weakest among us, including the elderly, Wisconsinites on fixed incomes, wage earners, savers, and more.

Rep. Sortwell said, “Gold and silver can once again be utilized in Wisconsin as the historical and constitutional currency they have been. A free people can once again hold and utilize a currency not subject to the whims and practices of the federal government and the Federal Reserve, which have devalued (and certainly will again) our money through inflation.”

“With the signing of AB 29, only six states in the entire country still levy this ridiculous tax on precious metals,” added Stefan Gleason, president of Money Metals and Chairman of the Sound Money Defense League.

“We will continue battling for our precious metals consumers in every state that still completely taxes gold and silver purchases, notably New Jersey, Maine, Kentucky, Vermont, Hawaii, and New Mexico,” Gleason added.

Similar laws are coming up swiftly right now in Kentucky and New Jersey. Within a few weeks, it’s feasible that Kentucky and New Jersey might become the 45th and 46th states to pass this exact reform.

More than a dozen other states have sponsored pro-sound money legislation in 2024 thus far, including Alaska, Indiana, Iowa, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Idaho, Arizona, Utah, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Kansas, Vermont, and West Virginia.

Wisconsin was tied at 45th out of 50 in the 2024 Sound Money Index. The enactment of this law is projected to enhance the state’s standing considerably.