How is the zakah on trade goods calculated?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
The questioner asks: How is the value of trade goods paid out? Is it at the purchase price known to the merchant, or at the selling price, which is unknown?
Answer:
Trade goods, for the sake of zakah, are valued at the end of the year. If the lunar year of possession has completed for the capital, the goods are valued at what they are worth at the time the year is completed, and the zakah is paid on the estimated value of what they are worth at that time. One does not look at what he bought them for, but rather estimates them at the present time at what they are worth in the markets, whether this estimate is more than the value for which he bought them, equal to it, or less. He pays zakah according to their value.
The questioner asks: How is the value of trade goods paid out? Is it at the purchase price known to the merchant, or at the selling price, which is unknown?
Answer:
Trade goods, for the sake of zakah, are valued at the end of the year. If the lunar year of possession has completed for the capital, the goods are valued at what they are worth at the time the year is completed, and the zakah is paid on the estimated value of what they are worth at that time. One does not look at what he bought them for, but rather estimates them at the present time at what they are worth in the markets, whether this estimate is more than the value for which he bought them, equal to it, or less. He pays zakah according to their value.
Source
قناة «العلامة الدكتور صالح الفوزان»، كيف تحسب زكاة عروض التجارة؟ للشيخ الفوزان — youtube.com
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.