QA-ID-0018
QUESTION
I have a question about Zakat payments
My parents have been running their trading business for over a decade. They have been giving zakat but only on gold/silver assets and not cash income. They also did not calculate zakat on business goods and after realising they want to start backdating their zakat for this but are unable to calculate the amount accurately from memory even through estimation.
What is the best way of doing so?
ANSWER
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It is necessary to give zakāt on cash savings and business goods that are left at the end of the zakāt year. The zakāt year is the date a person first became the owner of the threshold amount (nisāb) after puberty. Each person should note this date and remember it for each year, as this is his zakāt year and many rulings are based on it.
At the end of the zakāt year, whatever a person has in terms of cash savings, gold/silver and business goods, he will total all this and deduct any loans from the total. The number he has left is what he will give zakāt on. The value he will use for business goods is the market value and not the purchase cost. Remember that zakāt is not on cash income specifically but on whatever cash, gold/silver and business goods that remain at the end of each zakāt year.
If a person has not given zakāt on business goods and cash savings for many years, they must go through their records and do their best to come up with an accurate number for each zakāt year. They must go through their bank statements, company accounts, inventory records etc. to calculate the total for each year. They cannot take this matter lightly.
Once they have been able to come up with a figure for each year, they should calculate the total zakāt for that year and then deduct this zakāt amount from the next year and continue to do so until they are up to date as this zakāt that is owed is considered a debt that is deductible from the total zakātable assets.
For example,
Year 1: total of all zakātable assets = £10,000. Zakat = £250
Year 2: total of all zakātable assets = £10,000 – £250 (year 1 zakāt owed) = £9,750. Zakat = £243.75
Year 3: total of all zakātable assets = £10,000 – £250 (year 1 zakāt owed) – £243.75 (year 2 zakāt owed) = £9,506.25. Zakāt = £237.66
And so on.
They should also seek Allāh’s forgiveness for the delay in paying all those years of zakāt.
والله تعالى أعلم
And Allāh Knows Best
Muhammad Kalim Misbahi
