Taxes for larger online orders

[Sandman]

Hey Guys,

I was just looking over the FAQ over at Provident today and noticed this...

Q: Will you report my bullion purchase to the IRS?

A: We are only required to report cash purchases greater than $10,000. Please call with any questions regarding cash reporting.

Is this asking for trouble if you make the larger purchase? Would you have to file your sale with the IRS later and then pay taxes on the purchase even though it's out of state? The best part of the online purchase is paying no taxes but I just want to make sure I don't get audited.

Sandman

[mesham]

The paying of no taxes on online purchases is for sales tax. The IRS does not collect sales tax. State revenue does that. Although you are supposed to report/pay sales tax (in most states) for online purchases, most states don't have a way to enforce collecting sales tax on online purchases. The "cash purchases of greater than $10,000" is "reporting purposes" only to the IRS. It is called a CRT, Currency Transaction Report. It has been around for decades, but it has to be CASH. If you send a check it is not CASH, so no report is necessary. If you were to deposit or withdraw $10,000 or more in CASH then you would be reported by your bank. The bank's are also required to file an SAR, "Suspicious Activities Report", if it seems like someone is "strategically", making smaller deposits to avoid the CRT report. These reports were intended for catching money laundering. Though the government may use the information in the future for different purposes is not out the the question.

[Mark777]

Another angle: In my state of Wisconsin, online sales tax is only due the state IF I use, store, or keep the item in the state of Wisconsin. SO, that means if I buy silver or gold and store it out of state then I don't "owe" any sales tax to Wisconsin.

I recently made a purchase of silver from Gainesville Coins specifically for this reason. They have storage for a small fee. I never had the silver shipped to me.

This is the first time I've done this strategy and would like to know if anyone has a better strategy like say buying from a company and storing it outside the US and what the company name is?