Is it legal to make your own currency?
I saw something a while back on TLC, Discovery, or The History Channel on currency and heard them say that you are legally allowed to make your own currency, but it is up to the place you try to use it at to actually accept it or not. I have a friend, however, who says he saw something on one of the same channels stating that you can not make your own currency. If anyone has an answer, can you leave me a link to some solid evidence.
OK, this is my second post because I didn’t phrase it best the first time. What I mean is to create my own currency not copy the american dollar, since that is counterfeiting and highly illegal. Example: I make a coin named the whatchamacallit that bares no resemblance to any US coin and take it to a mom and pop store to buy a soda. They ring up the soda and say that’ll be .19. Then I say how about I give you 1 whatchamacallit instead. If they accept it, then my 1 whatchamacallit is equal to .19 US dollars there.
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Ever heard of Disney money? Monopoly money? You can make it, just so long as it doesn’t resemble official money from any country. That doesn’t mean that it will be accepted because it is not legal tender. You can try using your whatchamacallit, or an apple, or a dirt clod, or a bar of gold. That doesn’t mean that they will accept it (they may take the bar of gold…lol).
The value of anything is what it can be traded for. This includes legal tender, though that tends to be a bit more standardized.
I dont know for sure but if you try to use it, you’ll see a boat load of secret service agents at your door
Your watchumacallit has to be redeemable for goods and services. The last time I heard of people making their own script was to get around some IRS bartering laws.
hmm..I’ve not heard of this….doesn’t seem quite right to me, otherwise I think someone would have done it b4 now…
Keep dreamin’
well okay this is kinda tricky. Yes you can make your own currency, but you have to have in place people who will accept it, kinda like the pepsi or coke caps you redeem to get a free coke some will take it others wont.
Trick question.
You obviously cannot print your own currency that looks like US money.
If you wish to engage in a barter system, or make your own money, as long as they are willing to agree to it, it is OK.
ther was a man who made his money as artwork and used it as barter, but it was a tough sell. (I saw this on TV, but I can’t remeember where)
It is legal but you have to pay taxes on it.
You can make your own currency as long as ur not duplicating legal tender…but I doubt many people would accept your currency
I just had this discussion with my boyfriend.
No, you can’t make your own currency because the american currency has gold behind every penny, nickel, dime, quarter and dollar.
If anybody could make their own money, don’t you think we’d all do it? If we could do that we wouldn’t have anybody poor, and everyone would be richer then crap.
You have to have something behind a currency to create it. That’s why the US is so rich, because we were the land of gold. Gold is the standard currency, but we print money instead of using the gold.
it’s called counterfeiting, the reason the secret service exists is to arrest those guys
Yes you can make your own currency provided you do not pass it of as the regular currency. In your example, you are using your currency instead of the dollar. That is within the purview of counterfeiting.
Instead of buying with it, make a deal or barter or exchange. You can use anything for exchange or barter.
I don’ t have a link to solid answer, but I am supposing that in US, since the Fed has pre-empted the issue by issuing its own currency, I would suggest that you would only be able to issue your own "non-legal tender," such as businesses might use as coupons, etc.
Oh, and there has not been actual gold or silver backing US money for quite a few years now (it’s the literal cause of inflation).
Thanks, Pam, but don’t forget, folks, bartering is still to be considered as income for tax purposes!
You probably can, but it won’t be worth any more than the piece of paper it’s printed on.
The constitution:
Article I, Section 8, Clause 5. The Congress shall have Power…To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures.
You are certainly free to barter your goods for other services. If you’re a mechanic, you can fix someone’s car if they install your toilet for you, for example. Bartaring is legal.
Yeah you can. But the only reason why USD is worth anything is because the US Gov. says it is. If one were to make money more than likely its not going to be worth much b/c other ppl wouldnt care what you say its worth.
Everyone thinks this means making U.S. Currency but the question is can you make a currency that has value and can be used to buy goods? Yeah, coupons are like currency in that you can use them to purchase items. Precious metals are like currency in that you can trade them in for U.S. or any other country. Coal mines used to pay in company currency that could only be used at company stores and it was a way of controlling the work force and keep them in debt. I don’t think you can make a standard currency and distribute it to everyone to use in place of regular money. No one would take it anyhow.
The key words are, "if they accept it." If they realize that it’s not legal tender (put out by the government), but they accept it in change, it would be the same as bartering-I’ll take this in exchange for that.
No Purlce you are wrong. The United States along with most of the world WAS on the Gold Standard. We have since dissolved the gold standard. Money is no longer associated with gold in that way. Look it up.
1. Yes you can create your own currency.
2. Many communities have created their own currency to support local buying.
3. Your currency must not resemble an existing currency.
4. To copy an existing currency is counterfeiting.
5. Many ‘created’ currency includes a stipulation on it identifying where it is accepted. For example “Toronto dollars” were only accepted in Toronto, Canada and only by those businesses that honoured them.
6. It is legal in both the US and Canada to create your own currency.
7. The US and Canadian governments will not accept your own currency as legal tender.
8. While not redeemable for cash - coupons, gift cards, gift certificates, and points cards are all forms of ‘currency’.
9. While a business can legally ‘accept’ your own currency it is illegal to present your currency with the intent of deceiving the business into accepting it as the ‘legal tender’ recognized by the government. We call this ‘fraud’. For example someone trying to pay for something with a $1 million bill will have to explain their intentions to the local authorities (this actually happened recently in the news).
10. A business could put up a sign “Toaster” “Price: one bottle cap”, however the business is still obligated by law to collect sales tax on the toaster. It may only be worth one bottle cap to the business but they must give it a value when it comes to taxes and collect/remit accordingly. The first question the Tax Man will ask is “what is the market value of the toaster?” followed by “that’s a very pretty bottle cap, want to trade it for a nice pair of silver bracelets?”
11. Gold is only the standard in movies, PorkChop is correct. If it did then the US wouldn’t be in massive debt, all those bars of gold hidden in vaults has gone up 500% in value in the last two years and yet the US is still in massive debt (well, in massive debt of money that doesn’t actually exist but that’s another debate). In fact most “money” doesn’t even exist in the physical world.