The Government Values Its Gold at $42.22 an Ounce
 |
24 SEPTEMBER 2026
By Mike Leesponsored The Inheritance Guide |
Your Kids Could Owe More in 2026 Than You Think! The 2026 inheritance shift has already begun. Right now, estate tax exemptions are unusually high, nearly $15 million per individual. Sounds generous. But here’s what most families don’t realize… That number isn’t permanent. And even if you’re under it your heirs could still lose control, privacy, or flexibility without the right structure in place. When exemptions reset… the window closes. And once assets are locked inside traditional financial systems, your family may inherit paperwork, delays, exposure and taxes you thought you avoided. Here’s what smart families are doing instead: ✅ Moving a portion of wealth into privately held real assets ✅ Structuring transfers outside traditional brokerage pipelines ✅ Positioning before 2026 resets the rules ✅ Reducing visibility while increasing control Because passing wealth isn’t just about the IRS. It’s about leverage. Privacy. Timing. A new FREE Inheritance & Wealth Transfer Guide just broke down what families are quietly doing right now to prepare for 2026. It shows: • How current exemption laws actually work • What may change and how fast • Why tangible assets are being reconsidered • How to position before policy shifts Get access here before planning season accelerates » Once 2026 hits, reactive planning gets expensive. Proactive planning builds legacy. Claim your FREE guide now » P.S. Most families assume their estate plan is “done.” 2026 may prove otherwise. See what’s changing before your heirs do. |
Three Numbers to Start
$42.22 | the price per ounce at which the US Treasury still values its gold. Congress set the figure in February 1973 and has not touched it since. |
$1.1tn | what the same 261.5 million ounces are worth at the market price. They sit on the books at about $11 billion. |
98 | days until 31 December, the deadline for this year’s gifts, conversions and required withdrawals. |
ad Right now, estate tax exemptions are unusually high, nearly $15 million per individual. And even if you're under it your heirs could still lose control, privacy, or flexibility without the right structure in place. Download the free inheritance guide |
The Government Values Its Gold at $42.22 an Ounce
The United States holds 261,498,926 fine troy ounces of gold, about 8,133 metric tons, the largest official reserve in the world. Treasury carries it at $42.2222 an ounce. That is about $11 billion on the books.
Gold traded near $4,391 an ounce on Friday. The same metal is worth about $1.15 trillion at market, roughly a hundred times the book value.
The $42.22 is a 1973 number. The Smithsonian Agreement of December 1971 set the official price at $38. A second devaluation in February 1973 moved it to $42.2222. The fixed-rate system then collapsed. The statutory price did not move for fifty-three years.
The mechanics of changing it are already in the ledger. The Federal Reserve owns no gold. The Treasury owns all of it. The Fed holds gold certificates — paper claims against that metal. When the official price changes, Treasury marks the certificate account and the Fed credits the Treasury General Account by the difference.
A revaluation would not sell an ounce or move a bar. It would write a new official price, and the gap would appear as cash in Treasury’s account at the Fed without a bond being issued.
At Friday’s price that entry is about $1.14 trillion. Treasury Secretary Bessent said in February 2025 that the administration intends to “monetize the asset side of the US balance sheet.” A Federal Reserve staff economist published the historical precedents for revaluing official gold in August of that year. In May a bill in Congress put gold revaluation into legislative text.
The American precedent is 1934. The official price moved from $20.67 to $35. The paper profit capitalised the Exchange Stabilization Fund. The law and the new price arrived a day apart. The ledger entries used then are the same ones sitting on the books now.
What a reset reprices is the dollar that measures the metal, not the bar in the vault. That is the unit sitting in a 401(k).
sponsored The Great Gold Reset |
Pull up the price of gold right now. Somewhere north of $4,000 an ounce. Now here's the part almost nobody knows: By federal law, the United States government values its own gold at exactly $42.22 an ounce. That's not a typo. The official price was fixed by statute in 1973... and it has never been updated. Which means America's 261.5 million ounces of gold sit on the government's books at about $11 billion... While their real market value is roughly $1 TRILLION. For fifty years, that trillion-dollar gap was just a Washington accounting quirk. A dusty number nobody touched. Not anymore. In May, gold revaluation showed up in an actual bill introduced in Congress. And Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has been talking openly about "monetizing the asset side of the balance sheet." Ask yourself: what asset do you think he means? This is exactly the event a new emergency briefing calls The Great Gold Reset. Because here's what you need to understand about a revaluation: It is not a market move. There's no trend to watch. No chart that warns you. It's a signature. The last time Washington repriced its gold, in January 1934, the law passed one day... and the new price was announced the next. Gold jumped 69% by government decree, the dollar was devalued overnight, and ordinary Americans, who had already been ordered to turn in their gold at the OLD price, got nothing. The people positioned before the signature won. Everyone else paid for it. And listen: if you have $100,000 or more sitting in a 401(k) or IRA right now, you should pay closer attention than anyone. Because those dollars are the exact thing a reset reprices. Not the gold. The paper measuring it. The free Great Gold Reset briefing lays out what's coming, why one case says gold could ultimately be repriced as high as $38,000 an ounce, and the specific steps to position your IRA or 401(k) BEFORE the announcement. The video is free. The companion guide is free. The only thing that expires is the word "before." Unlock the briefing here. P.S. $42.22. That number has survived nine presidents. There's a reason Washington suddenly wants to change it, and a reason they're not holding a press conference about it. See the full story here. |
Royalties Get Paid Before Anybody Counts Profits
A working interest owns a share of the well and pays a share of every cost, from drilling through plugging. A royalty interest owns a share of the revenue from the first barrel sold, pays no operating costs and takes no part in the drilling decision.
That is why mineral rights change hands at prices that look strange next to the wells above them. The royalty is a claim on gross revenue, not on profit. Gross is the number that arrives first.
Rates are set by contract on private land and by statute on federal land. Private leases commonly run between 12.5% and 25%. The federal onshore minimum sat at 12.5% for a century until the 2022 climate law raised it to 16.67% for new leases.
Two features shape the cheque. Production from a shale well falls steeply in the first two years and then flattens into a long tail, so the early payments are the largest. The income also qualifies for a depletion deduction, which shelters a portion of it each year.
The stream is tied to the price of a commodity, not to the credit of a borrower. It arrives monthly. Nobody can cut it to preserve a dividend, because there is no dividend to preserve.
sponsored The Patriot Income Plan |
Saudi families collect $3,600 a month from their government. No work. No application. No strings. Just oil money — distributed to citizens automatically. Here's what nobody tells you: America has 40% more oil than Saudi Arabia. More recoverable oil than any nation on earth. And yet while the Saudis are getting checks — you're getting nothing. That's about to change. There's a way for ordinary Americans to tap directly into the $300+ billion generated from American oil and gas every year. No accreditation required. No Wall Street middleman. Robert Kiyosaki calls it the Patriot Income Plan. It has historically paid 8–10% a year. On your terms. Not theirs. See how to enroll → |
Ninety-Eight Days to Move Anything This Year
Three clocks stop on 31 December. Each one governs a different piece of what a family can still move in 2026.
Gifts. The annual exclusion is $19,000 per recipient this year. Give that much to as many people as you like, with no gift-tax return and no bite of the lifetime exemption. A couple can give $38,000 to each child. The allowance does not roll forward. An unused 2026 exclusion is gone on 1 January.
The lifetime line this year is $15 million a person. Wills and trusts written to a $7 million cliff still key off “the exemption amount.” Control, probate and who can move the assets after death never needed that federal line to matter. They still don’t.
Conversions. A Roth conversion counts in the year the money moves. There is no undo. It also sets the Medicare surcharge two years out, so a December conversion reaches a 2028 premium.
Withdrawals. Required minimum distributions have to be out by the last business day. A shortfall costs 25% of the amount that should have come out, cut to 10% if corrected within two years.
Custodians slow down in the last week of December. A transfer that misses the year boundary lands in the wrong tax year. The paperwork that matters is the paperwork that clears.
What is Scheduled
Oct | the next Fed meeting. Markets price roughly an even chance of another increase after the first rise since 2023. |
3 Nov | the midterm elections. |
31 Dec | the close of the tax year for gifts, conversions and required withdrawals. |
A $1.14 trillion credit to Treasury without a new bond would change the fiscal tape the Fed reads in October. The official gold price on that tape is still $42.22.
ad Most families assume their estate plan is done. 2026 may prove otherwise. See what's changing before your heirs do |
A Number From 1973
$42.22 | the statutory price per ounce on 261.5 million ounces of federal gold. The market says $4,391. Closing the gap would credit about $1.14 trillion to Treasury without selling an ounce. The last time the official price moved, in 1934, the law and the new number arrived a day apart. |
Forget the hot picks — protect what you’ve already built, and move what you mean to move before the year closes. Because the best trade you’ll ever make is the loss you never took. Mike LeeDeals CatchersThanks for reading. See you tomorrow. |
Forwarded this? Get it every morning. |
