It depends ...

If you try to dodge taxes with it, the IRS will claim you earned $30,000.

If 30 rare one dollar silver coins are ordered returned by a judge after an unlawful seizure, the agency involved will cut the victim a check for $30 and claim they paid in full.

And if he returns the money and commits suicide, but is buried in land bought with the money, do his heirs have any tax liability? :^)

If the government manages to obtain the information, I'd expect there to be no further discussion of possible violence or similar pretenses. I'd also expect a statistically improbable number of "random" tax audits among those thought criminals with the temerity to criticize their masters.

I would think there would be a good case for $30. Face value is used for the customs declaration forms to take more than $10,000 out of the country.

Once again "safety" is used as the bugbear to justify just about any government action. So now it's not protected speech to say "that guy should be hanged"? That's quite a different thing from saying, "I'm going to find that guy and hang him this Saturday." One is just a general expression of frustration and outrage; the other is a specific threat.

So now what if I were to say "the federal government is out of control"? All of a sudden I get a visit from the IRS?

Constitution, schmonstitution....

I agree - tax liability for what he's paid should be $30.

Now when he goes to sell the coins, that income should be properly recognized as (about) $30,000.

The coins are WORTH $30 because that is what the government has used their constitutional powers to set the value thereof.

Any other valuation is subjective and invalid. Everything is worth nothing until the moment arrives when someone exchanges another valueless item for what you have AND you accept that other valueless item giving it value TO YOU.

The concept of "value" is completely misunderstood. Value only comes into play when two or more individuals agree on what the value of something is.

Tiocfaidh ar la!

IANAL, this is not legal advice, etc.

Let's say I work for you for a year and you owe me "$30,000". (That sounds somewhat like what the payment was for in the story.) First off, if you only pay me $30, you're clearly violating minimum wage laws. (If they're not employees but contractors, then it might not matter.) Second and more importantly, the intent here is clearly to defraud, which probably carries a lot of legal weight.

Finally, in the question as asked, the concept of "legal tender" means that if the recipient is really claiming a $30 debt (as opposed to a $30,000 one), you should be able to pay them $30 in Federal Reserve Notes and have the debt legally discharged. Otherwise, if the contract is for the exchange of rare/bullion coins rather than dollars, then setting a value of $30,000 doesn't seem unreasonable, just as if the trade were otherwise for a car with a market value of $30,000.

To simplify the problem, suppose that I have a 1964 Ford Mustang in factory new condition that I agree to give you in exchange for those 30 coins of yours. A straight barter exchange with no minimum wage laws, no intent to defraud, no legal tender argument. You and I each purchased the car and coins for $10K. Does either of us have a taxable gain on the exchange?

Section 61 says "All income however derived." His income is $30,000. The silver dollars will not be consider "money." They will be considered "property." The taxpayer has been paid "in kind." It will be no different than if he were paid with any other property. The income is the value of the property when it is received.

I had a case where a child mistakenly paid a vendor with rare coins worth greatly in excess of their face value. We were able to get the coins back because the vendor knew they were valuable property and not money. The taxpayer in this case is like the vendor in my case. He knows that what he has received has taken on a character separate and apart from what it might appear to be.

If a contract specifies payment as "30 dollars, but only in a particular type of silver dollar coin" any court evaluating such a contract is going to look at the actual value of the thing specified.

Once you start specifying terms of payment other than mere monetary amounts, courts are going to go into analysis mode to determine the actual value of what is being given as consideration. So ask yourself- if someone breached the contract requiring $30 in silver dollar coins, do you think the defendants here would be suing for 30 dollars or for the value of those particular coins? I think we all know the answer.

Similarly, the problem here is they obviously transferred 30,000 dollars worth of wealth but used an obsolete form of currency with a nominal value of thirty dollars. If it was a transfer of 30 dollars and not 30,000 dollars in value, why specify it be in silver coins?

I hate the income tax and I'd do away with it in a second, but anyone who attempts this sort of unsophisticated trickery is setting themselves up for prison time.

And remember that courts don't like specific performance. They're not going to force the defendants to cough up 30 silver coins. They're going to force them to cough up the VALUE of the damages.

So the question is- does their contract specify 30 dollars worth of consideration or does it specify 30,0000 dollars worth of consideration?

Did anyone notice that there are no comments about the article detailing federal subpeonas for comments on another article. There is a book that can be written in there somewhere.