Tenth Amendment Center: Louisiana House Passes Bill to Encourage Use of Gold and Silver as Money
BATON ROUGE, La. (May 25, 2017) – Yesterday, the Louisiana House unanimously passed a bill that would exempt the sale and purchase of gold and silver from state sales and use taxes, encouraging their use and taking the first step toward breaking the Federal Reserve’s monopoly on money.
Rep. Stephen Dwight (R) and Rep. Mark Abraham (R) introduced House Bill 396 (HB396) on March 31. The legislation would exempt the sale of platinum, gold, or silver bullion, ingots, or coins from the state sales tax. It would also exempt certain numismatic (collectable) coins.
On Wednesday, the House passed HB396 95-0.
Imagine if you asked a grocery clerk to break a $5 bill and he charged you a 35 cent tax. Silly, right? After all, you were only exchanging one form of money for another. But that’s essentially what Louisiana’s sales tax on gold and silver does. By removing the sales tax on the exchange of gold and silver, Louisiana would treat specie as money instead of a commodity. This represents a small step toward reestablishing gold and silver as legal tender and breaking down the Fed’s monopoly on money.
Practically speaking, eliminating taxes on the sale of gold and silver would crack open the door for people to begin using it in regular business transactions.This would mark an important small step toward currency competition. If sound money gains a foothold in the marketplace against Federal Reserve notes, the people would be able to choose the time-tested stability of gold and silver over the central bank’s rapidly-depreciating paper currency.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
The United States Constitution states in Article I, Section 10, “No State shall…make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts.” States have simply ignored this constitutional provision for years. It’s impossible for states to return to a constitutional sound money system when it taxes gold and silver as a commodity.
This Louisiana bill takes a step toward that constitutional requirement, ignored for decades in every state. Such a tactic would set the stage to undermine the monopoly of the Federal Reserve by introducing competition into the monetary system.
Constitutional tender expert Professor William Greene said when people in multiple states actually start using gold and silver instead of Federal Reserve Notes, it would effectively nullify the Federal Reserve and end the federal government’s monopoly on money.
“Over time, as residents of the state use both Federal Reserve notes and silver and gold coins, the fact that the coins hold their value more than Federal Reserve notes do will lead to a “reverse Gresham’s Law” effect, where good money (gold and silver coins) will drive out bad money (Federal Reserve notes). As this happens, a cascade of events can begin to occur, including the flow of real wealth toward the state’s treasury, an influx of banking business from outside of the state – as people in other states carry out their desire to bank with sound money – and an eventual outcry against the use of Federal Reserve notes for any transactions.”
Once things get to that point, Federal Reserve notes would become largely unwanted and irrelevant for ordinary people. Nullifying the Fed on a state by state level is what will get us there.
WHAT’S NEXT
HB396 will move to the Senate. Once it is assigned to a committee, it will need to pass by a majority vote before moving forward in the legislative process.
Mike Maharrey
May 25, 2017 at 11:25PM
