Buying Gold Tax Free
As well as being a great investment, looking fantastic, and impressing all your friends, there are some benefits to gold that you might not have known about. As it happens, there are a range of tax exemptions on gold, meaning tax free gold is significantly easier to come across than you might think.
For investors looking to make the largest possible profit on their investment, this is a particular benefit – as a higher proportion of the money you spend can be invested, rather than taxed. Though not all gold products are free from all tax, investors who choose wisely can make considerable savings.
The two main taxes that could affect your investment are Value Added Tax (VAT) and Capital Gains Tax (CGT). Here’s more on how they affect the gold price you pay and how you can find tax free gold.
VAT free gold
VAT is a tax on goods and services. You pay it on most things, though you’ll often not even notice it’s there, since most retailers include it in the product price.
At the time of writing (2017), it constitutes 20 percent of the price of most things you buy. Luckily, ‘most things’ doesn’t include gold, since investment gold is subject to an EU-wide exemption. Though the definition of what constitutes this is somewhat complicated and slippery, in practice, it means most gold bullion products that you’re likely to find on websites such as The Gold Bullion Company will be VAT free.
Luckily you can easily see the VAT free gold coins on our website, since we’ve taken the trouble to label them all.
CGT free gold
CGT free gold is a little harder to come across than VAT. CGT is charged on the profits you make from the sale of a gold item, so you won’t have to pay it if you’re just building a coin collection that you have no intention of selling. If you’re planning on making some money from your gold in a few years’ time, however, you’ll need to know your tax rates.
Luckily, no tax will be charged until you reach your personal CGT threshold of £11,300 of profits. This is the current tax free allowance, meaning if you sold a gold coin worth £30,000 for £41,300, you still wouldn’t pay any CGT, as you only made £11,300 worth of profits. From then on, you’d pay a flat rate, likely 10 or 20 per cent of the profits you made over £11,300, depending on your individual circumstances and assuming you hadn’t made a profit in other areas liable for CGT that tax year.
If you happen to make profits over the tax free allowance, there is a small selection of gold products that remain exempt from Capital Gains Tax. Due to their status as legal tender currency, all British coins from The Royal Mint are free from CGT, however much profit you make from them. This includes the internationally renowned gold sovereign and gold Britannia series.
Buy tax free gold
If you want to find the most competitively priced tax free gold available, then browse our selections of tax free gold coins, to see what savings you can make. With the finest quality products, free, fully insured next day deliver, and the most competitive rates that are automatically updated in line with the live gold price, we’re sure to have all your tax free gold needs fully covered here at The Gold Bullion Company.