Precious Metals Academy
Precious Metals IRAs: The Complete Guide
Self-directed metals IRAs from the rules up: eligible products, the real fee stack, the home-storage myth, and when a plain gold fund in your existing IRA beats all of it.
In short
- IRA metals must be held by a qualified custodian at an approved depository — personal possession is a taxable distribution. The marketed "home storage IRA" was rejected in Tax Court (McNulty, 2021).
- Eligible gold must be .995+ fine bullion (American Eagles get a statutory exception). Collectible and numismatic coins are excluded — dealers pushing graded coins into IRAs are a red flag.
- The real fee stack — setup, annual custodian, depository storage, dealer spreads — commonly runs $150–$300+ per year plus 2–8% on each transaction.
- Inside any IRA the 28% collectibles tax rate is irrelevant — which is exactly why holding PHYS or a gold ETF in your EXISTING brokerage IRA is usually the stronger first move.
- A dedicated metals IRA earns its fees mainly at larger balances ($50k+) for investors who specifically want allocated physical metal inside a tax wrapper.
No corner of precious metals investing is marketed harder than the "gold IRA" — and no corner has a wider gap between the advertising and the rules. This guide covers what a self-directed precious metals IRA actually is, what the IRS requires, what it costs, and the question the commercials never ask: whether you need one at all.
A precious metals IRA is a self-directed IRA (Traditional or Roth) whose custodian permits alternative assets, holding IRS-eligible bullion at an approved depository on the account's behalf. The tax treatment is the ordinary IRA treatment — tax-deferred growth in a Traditional, tax-free qualified withdrawals in a Roth. The metal is titled to the IRA, not to you personally.