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What is the Best Way to Store Gold & Silver Bullion?
When investing in physical precious metals, one of the most important considerations is how and where to safely store them. Like other valuables with high value-to-weight ratios, gold and silver bullion should be stored in a way that prevents them from being stolen, lost, or damaged by a fire or natural disasters. In this article, we will introduce BullionStar’s cutting-edge vaulting service that allows precious metals investors to store their bullion in our highly-secure vaults located in multiple countries — the United States, Singapore, and New Zealand — for maximum geographic and jurisdictional diversification.
No matter which BullionStar location you choose to store your bullion in, they all adhere to the most advanced and cutting-edge security practices to keep your hard-earned investments as safe and secure as possible. All of our vaults are built to meet and exceed industry standards for vault construction and use multiple redundant security systems to keep the vaults under constant surveillance. In addition, our vaults are guarded at all times by highly trained security teams.
BullionStar uses numerous methods to ensure the existence and correctness of customers’ bullion holdings that are stored in our vaults. For example, we use five different audit methods including third-party audits by the respected auditing firm Bureau Veritas, internal audits, financial audits by a licensed auditing firm, our Live Audit Report, and customer audits. When we process your precious metals into vault storage, we take photos of each item along with their serial numbers and printed order confirmation. These photos are uploaded to your BullionStar account so that you can identify your bullion and verify that the serial numbers in the photos match the serial numbers on your invoice and in the Live Audit Report. We also provide all vault storage customers with a certificate of ownership that lists the bullion items that you have stored with us.
When you store your precious metals with BullionStar, you remain the rightful legal owner of them. We segregate all BullionStar-owned precious metals from customer-owned precious metals in our vaults to prevent commingling of assets. Furthermore, all bullion stored in our vaults is insured against all risks at full replacement value. Our insurance coverage is provided by Lloyd’s of London, which is the leading provider of insurance to the bullion industry. When you store your precious metals with BullionStar, you bear no risk whatsoever.
Managing your stored bullion is extremely easy through your BullionStar account, which lets you buy, sell, store, withdraw, and analyze your bullion portfolio online at all times. You can even transfer your bullion to different BullionStar vault locations, and you can divide your holdings among multiple locations, if you’d like.
Here’s why BullionStar chose each of our vault locations:
The United States
The United States is the world’s de facto financial center, and the U.S. dollar is the closest thing to a universal currency and is the world’s most widely held reserve currency. Our U.S. vault is located in Texas, which is one of the most precious metals-friendly states in America, not to mention the whole world. In addition, precious metals have a long and rich history as money and stores of value in the United States. The U.S. dollar was even backed by gold until 1971, while the United States Mint has produced precious metals coins since 1794 and still does to this day.
The recognition and protection of individual rights and private property were major reasons why the United States was founded in the first place and Texas has stayed true to those beliefs more than most other states. Furthermore, neither the United States nor the state of Texas levy sales taxes on bullion products.
Singapore
The wealthy and sophisticated island nation of Singapore is one of the best countries to store gold and silver bullion — even if you’re not a resident or citizen of Singapore. Singapore is world-renowned for its political independence and stability, which is why it is considered the “Switzerland of Asia.” Singapore is also one of the safest countries in the world thanks to its very low crime rate and virtually nonexistent violent crime.
Singapore’s pro-business policies and culture has led to it being consistently rated one of the world’s best countries to do business and manage wealth. Few other countries rival Singapore’s protection of private property and its ease of doing business. Even better is the fact that Singapore’s government is very friendly to precious metals investing and investors, and is proactive in supporting the sector through various agencies including Enterprise Singapore, which works to attract bullion dealers and refineries to the country, as well as pro-precious metals initiatives such as exempting investment precious metals from sales tax in 2012.
Singapore’s reputation as a pro-business mecca along with its impeccable safety and security make it a top jurisdiction for storing your hard-earned precious metals. In addition, Singapore doesn’t tax bullion in any way shape, or form — not even on capital gains!
New Zealand
There are few better countries to store your gold and silver bullion than New Zealand. An affluent, well-protected island nation in the South Pacific Ocean, New Zealand is consistently ranked as one of the world’s top three most business-friendly countries thanks to its economic and personal freedoms, strong protection of private property rights, minimal regulation, and low levels of corruption.
New Zealand’s secluded location in the South Pacific Ocean shields it from geopolitical hot spots, which greatly contributes to the country’s political safety and security. Additionally, New Zealand doesn’t tax bullion at all — there is no capital gains tax, sales tax, Goods and Services Tax (GST), VAT, import or export taxes.
There are many advantages to storing your gold and silver bullion in multiple locations around the world — a practice known as jurisdictional diversification. The healthy use of jurisdictional diversification helps you to avoid putting all of your eggs in one basket, which is a wise decision considering the fact that governments have outlawed and confiscated their citizens’ gold bullion such as the United States in 1933 and India in 1965. Though bullion confiscation is not likely to occur again, it is a potential scenario to be aware of that highlights the benefit of jurisdictional diversification.
BullionStar’s vault storage solution also allows you to securely store both bullion and cash outside of the banking system, which is very desirable because it protects your hard-earned wealth from the growing risk of bail-ins. A bail-in is when a failing bank essentially confiscates a portion of depositors’ deposits. For example, you may deposit $100,000 in your bank account, but only be able to withdraw $70,000 if your bank is failing and declares a bail-in.
A widely publicized bail-in took place in Cyprus in 2013 during the European debt crisis, which set the precedent and created the playbook for even more bail-ins in countries around the world in the next financial crisis, which is only a matter of time. As we explained in 2015, “bank bail-ins mean that you don’t own your money.” BullionStar’s vault storage solution is incredibly valuable and unique because it enables people from all walks of life to diversify their hard-earned wealth across multiple jurisdictions, which was an option only available to the ultra-rich until recently.
BullionStar’s vault storage solution is also an excellent option for Americans who want to invest in gold and silver through an Individual Retirement Account (IRA) in order to take advantage of the tax benefits of IRAs. Any U.S. resident with taxable income can open an IRA, and IRA contributions are tax deductible. Opening a precious metals IRA is quite simple: you need to open a custodial account for the purpose of establishing a self-directed custodial IRA. Once your custodial account is opened, you need to fund it.
After your custodial account is funded, you need to create a BullionStar account so that you can purchase and store precious metals for your IRA. After that, you choose your preferred precious metals products from BullionStar, place a buy order, and send the order confirmation to your IRA custodian to settle with funds from your IRA. BullionStar will then process your precious metals product orders and place the products into our storage vault(s). You have the option to sell, audit, physically withdraw, or ship your precious metals to another depository at any time.
BullionStar charges reasonable fees for storing precious metals in our vaults and our fees are some of the lowest in the industry, which is a small price to pay for the security and peace of mind that our vault storage solution will provide you with:
U.S. vault storage fees:
- Gold bullion products: 0.39% per year
- Silver & platinum bullion products: 0.49% per year
- Bullion Savings Program (BSP) gold grams: 0.09% per year
- Bullion Savings Program (BSP) silver & platinum grams: 0.19% per year
Singapore vault storage fees:
- Gold bullion products: 0.39% per year
- Silver & platinum bullion products: 0.59% per year
- Bullion Savings Program (BSP) gold grams: 0.09% per year
- Bullion Savings Program (BSP) silver & platinum grams: 0.19% per year
New Zealand vault storage fees:
- Gold bullion products: 0.59% per year
- Silver & platinum bullion products: 0.88% per year
- Bullion Savings Program (BSP) gold grams: 0.09% per year
- Bullion Savings Program (BSP) silver & platinum grams: 0.19% per year
To summarize, BullionStar’s vault storage solution is the ideal way to keep your precious metals safe and secure, while giving you the option to diversify your holdings across some of the world’s safest and bullion-friendly jurisdictions. When your bullion is stored in our vaults, you never have to worry about the risk of a fire, theft, loss or disappearance, or getting mixed up with other clients’ bullion holdings. Our vault storage service is also an excellent option for retirement savers who want to invest in physical gold and silver in a tax-advantaged manner.
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