The government mandates that the Personal Income Tax (PIT) Law clearly stipulates that income from gold trading is subject to taxation. This aims to enhance transparency and limit gold speculation. The Ministry of Finance has been tasked with collaborating with the State Bank to finalize this in the draft law.

Nguyen Quang Huy from Nguyen Trai University said that gold has long been not only a financial asset but also a traditional means of saving and a form of financial backup for many families. Tax policy design must be subtle enough to clearly distinguish between legitimate saving behavior and speculative, profit-driven trading.

Huy proposed that PIT should only apply to actual profits, calculated as the difference between the selling and purchase prices, rather than the entire transaction value. This is key to avoiding negative impact on individuals selling gold for essential needs.

Additionally, a reasonable tax exemption threshold should be established, such as exempting profits below a certain amount annually or for small-scale transactions. This ensures fairness and allows authorities to focus on large-scale cases rather than managing millions of minor transactions.

A common concern is that individuals who have saved gold all their lives may be taxed when they sell it. According to Huy, this is a valid concern that should be addressed with a more humane mechanism.

“One solution could be exempting or reducing taxes for transactions with long holding periods, such as two years or more. This way, those who treat gold as savings are unaffected, while short-term trading is taxed,” he said.

To curb speculation, Huy suggested that the tax policy encourage stable holding while increasing costs for short-term trading. Higher tax rates could apply to large-scale, frequent transactions that exhibit a business-like nature.

This should be paired with broader measures, such as developing safe and transparent financial products like gold certificates, electronic gold accounts, or gold ETFs; enhancing the appeal of savings accounts, bonds, and stocks; publicizing price information to reduce disparities; and tightly regulating gold trading activities. 

“When the financial system operates efficiently and transparently, the urge to hoard gold for speculation will naturally decline,” Huy said.

Proposal to tax sales of one tael or more

Nguyen Ngoc Tu, lecturer at Hanoi University of Business and Technology, agreed that the government’s request to include gold trading income as taxable under the PIT Law is appropriate, timely, and necessary to stabilize the gold market.

According to Tu, fundamental legal documents already specify that any organization or individual engaging in trading or earning income must pay tax. Therefore, it's important to clarify the applicable tax rate on gold, how it will be collected, who will collect it, and the method of payment (withholding at source or self-declaration).

He suggested that while real estate is currently subject to a 2 percent tax on selling price, gold could be taxed at 1-2 percent of the sale price. The tax should be withheld at source, with gold trading companies responsible for the deduction.

Tu believes that taxing income from gold trading would reduce speculative and short-term trading motivations. Gold buyers would bear both the margin between buying and selling prices and the income tax. 

For example, if someone buys gold today at VND131 million per tael and sells it tomorrow at VND128 million, they would incur a loss of VND3 million. If counting in the VND2 million in tax, the total loss could reach VND5 million per tael.

“This will shift investors’ behavior, pushing them toward other business types or investment channels. Money will circulate into production and business instead of being locked up in gold. As demand drops, gold prices will also go down,” he explained.

However, he emphasized the need to set a tax threshold. Specifically, he proposed only applying tax when selling one tael of gold or more. If people sell accumulated gold in small amounts, such as 1-2 chi (a fraction of a tael), and it falls below the threshold, no tax should be applied.

He also urged implementing the tax this year, rather than waiting for the PIT Law amendment, to stabilize the gold market and ease pressure on exchange rates by year-end.

Nguyen Le