It's not holding gold in an IRA that converts capital gains to ordinary income.CT-Scott wrote: ↑Mon Apr 06, 2020 1:49 pm Actually, I guess I'm still confused...
If I've got the option to own paper gold in my 401k account (for sake of argument, let's say specifically the IAU fund), I should be able to trade my IAU for some money market fund later *inside* of my 401k, without any tax implications. So, when I want to *actually* pull some money out of my 401k (when I'm retired) I could just "sell" some of my IAU shares inside of my 401k account, which then becomes money market money inside my 401k. And *then* I withdraw some of that money market money.
So I'm missing ochotona's comment that holding gold inside of a traditional IRA (or 401k) converts cap gains to ordinary income, and thus a bad idea to hold paper gold inside one of these types of accounts.
What am I missing?
It's having any gains in an IRA.