$55M gold lost during Civil War being hunted down by the FBI in PA

Burn That Belly said:
If some dude finds it, does he have to pay taxes on it?

Since it was Union gold, the entire amount belongs to the US government.  Your only chance of keeping it would be to find the gold, keep it a secret, and melt it down to resell.  Assuming it would take a skilled team to find the gold in the first place, keeping this a secret from the government seems like it would be nearly impossible.

What has happened with sunken treasures aboard ships is that sometimes the finders will negotiate a commission for themselves with the government that claims ownership.  I would think this might apply here, and then they would just owe taxes on that commission amount.
 
They have a show about this on History channel.  Pretty sure the guys who captured Jefferson Davis stole the gold or hid it and came back to fetch it later.  Good amount of evidence points toward this. 

One of these guys (Charles Hackley) had a good income but nowhere near his entire net worth upon his death.  At this point anyone who knows what happened is long since dead and most of what?s been passed down is morphed to urban legend. 

Interesting story, but I don?t think there?s any gold buried there.  Think about it, if 4 or 5 people today know where $140M is buried, you think they would take it to their grave without any of them (or their kids) going back for it?  Not a chance.
 
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