If stocks have you depressed and episodes of Antiques
Roadshow have you intrigued, you might want to save for
retirement via collectibles. However, you can’t invest your
IRA funds in collectibles. If you do, the amount of IRA
money used to buy collectibles will be treated as a
taxable distribution.
Exceptions to this rule include gold, silver, and platinum
coins minted by the U.S. Treasury Department as well as
state-issued coins inside your IRA.
If you do hold such coins in your IRA, the usual rules
apply. They’ll have to be valued for the purposes of
determining required distributions after you reach age
70 1/2. If the coins themselves are withdrawn, the value
of the withdrawn coins will be added to your income and
taxed at ordinary tax rates.
