Dear Brothers and Sisters, Assalaamu 'alaikum,
I am researching the topic of zakat calculation on company shares and also on cryptocurrencies since a couple of weeks and found this site and forum to be very helpful but I still have some questions I couldn’t find the answers for.
Let’s say I buy long term shares of a company worth 10.000€ and the value is increasing over the years with a current value of 25.000€. If I use the IFG zakat calculator or also other zakat calculators I have to pay 2,5% zakat every year on the current market value of the shares which is 25.000€ now. My problem arises when I also incorporate taxes. I am located in Germany for example and 25% of the gains are not owned by me but by the state. I will never get access to these 25% and there will also be no tax liability in later years when I sell which I could deduct since this amount is automatically blocked and transferred to the tax authorities by the banks when you sell the shares. My reasoning tells me that I have to substract the 25% capital gains tax every year which is 3750€ now and pay zakat on the remaining amout which is currently 21.250€, but the calculator does not consider this it seems. I would be glad if someone could let me know if my calculation is correct or if I am making some reasoning mistakes here.
Regarding cryptocurrencies I have similar problems. Mostly the opinions on cryptocurrencies seem to be in the direction that cryptocurrencies are to be treated like cash, but this is not the case by law in germany. It is officially not treated equally as cash and with the current extreme volatilities it also doesn’t behave like cash. Additionally if I want to pay with my cryptocurrency I have to pay income tax on the spent cryptocurrency because in the mean time the crypto increased in value after I bought it initally. This does not happen with cash. By law even the situation with gold is also not equal to the way cash works in germany. When I convert gold to euro to pay with it I have to pay income tax again if I didn’t hold the gold for at least a year. Therefore my conclusion is that there is a conflict between goverment laws and how we as muslims define cash/currency which results in very interesting problems regarding zakat calculations. Additionally it is an open secret that a lot of crypto tokens are currently seen as company shares of high risk companies or like venture capital investments on startups where you can easily loose your money if it doesn’t work out. Now my reasoning tells me to put these coins into the startup category of the IFG Calculator. I would be glad to hear some opinions regarding this topic and to get feedback regarding mistakes in the reasoning.
The german pension system is getting worse and worse for the younger generation, because the average age of the population is rising steadily. That’s why I decided to exit the official german pension system and take care of it by my own. Therefore nearly all of my investments are long term and for my pension, but they are a mix of stocks, cryptocurrency and precious metals managed by my own, so it is not officially a pension. Can I still treat it like a pension which is not zakatable in the IFG Calculator or should I treat it regularly as it is and pay zakat on it ? What is the common opinion on this ?
Thanks a lot in advance.