House Bill 40: A potential windfall for political donors in Idaho’s tax cuts debate | Opinion
The 2025 legislative session is off to a roaring start. Another year, another opportunity for Idaho lawmakers to help the people who helped them win office.
There is no clearer example of this rule of politics than a tax cut bill that was recommended for passage by the House Revenue and Taxation Committee on Thursday, which contains a minor provision that could create a windfall for a prominent political donor.
This is an issue with a long history.
Last year, the Legislature passed a law that could have resulted in a large portion of Idaho’s idle funds — something roughly equivalent to the money sitting in Idaho’s checking account — being parked in physical deposits of gold. It just so happened that one place to park those funds would be the Money Metals Exchange vaults in Eagle, which the company advertises as being “Larger Than Fort Knox.” This bill has risen from the grave repeatedly for years, usually sponsored by far-right lawmakers who were recipients of donations from Money Metals Exchange and/or CEO Stefan Gleason.
That was one of only two bills that Gov. Brad Little exercised his veto power to block last year. Don’t be surprised if it shows up again this year.
But there’s more than one way to skin a cat, more than one way to turn taxpayer funds into a profitable commodity for a benefactor.
Enter House Bill 40, one of a set of tax cut bills brought forward by House Speaker Mike Moyle, R-Star. Moyle was the recipient of a $1,000 contribution, the maximum allowed by law, from Gleason personally in April, along with another $1,000 from SMC Properties, which Boise State Public Radio reports Gleason owns. Some cosponsors have been beneficiaries of such contributions, as well.
The bill contains a minor provision to exempt investments in gold from capital gains taxes. But not all gold gets exempted. Only gold bullion — as defined by another section of Idaho Code which creates a special-interest exemption from sales tax — gets this tax break.
So, under the law, if you have a large investment in a bunch of gold jewelry, and that jewelry increases in value substantially before you sell it, you might owe a tidy sum in capital gains. If you own a hoard of historic Roman silver coins, same raw deal. If you trade gold and silver futures contracts on commodities exchanges, you’re still out of luck.
Buy a physical hunk of bullion, however — perhaps from Money Metals Exchange — and you’re in luck. No sales tax on the purchase (Idaho Code 63-3622V), and no capital gains tax when you sell it, should HB 40 pass without amendment.
This bullion give-away is a minor portion of HB 40, which is primarily focused on substantial income tax cuts, and also includes a laudable provision to exempt military retirement benefits from taxation. Maybe that’s why Moyle only uttered a sentence or two about it during Thursday’s hearing. Seeking to breeze past the provision as quickly as possible, Moyle muttered some nonsense justification about Idaho being a resource-rich state.
And it makes sense to want to move on quickly. Moyle likely cares very little about capital gains on bullion. He’s spent his career fighting for every income tax cut he could find, and this bill has another substantial one.
Idaho politics has changed a lot in the last decade. The moderate majority has been largely supplanted by the far-right.
But some things never change:
It pays to have friends in high places.
And it pays to pay those friends.