How should Zakat be paid on commercial goods?

Answer by Dr Zakir Naik,As far as a person who buys any article for his use then but natural whatever he buys, whatever the cost is, we have to take out the depreciation and pay Zakaat on that amount depending on what it is. If its land it may appreciate, it may go down, if it’s a machinery then depreciation but this question is mainly for goods for trade that a person who buys some goods for selling so should he pay at the price at which he bought it or at the price at which he is going to sell.
Here again the scholars differ. According to Shaikh Saleh Al Munajjid, he says that if you buy certain goods for selling, if you are a wholesaler then take Zakaat on the price of wholesale, that your’e going to sell, If you are a retailer then you take out Zakaat on the price that which you are going to sell on retail and if you are doing both then take a rough estimate and then take out Zakaat but some of the scholars, they say that in retail the profit margin is quite a lot depending upon the good you are dealing with. If you are dealing with may be buying and selling books, the profit margin of books is 40%, 50%, 60% also. So imagine if someone has large shop of books or a chain of bookstores and if he purchases worth may be 100,000 dollars worth of books and he sells the selling price may be more than 200,000 dollars so for him to pay Zakaat on the selling price would be too much so I agree more with those scholars who say that whatever is the cost, once you buy it since its with you, you haven’t made the profit yet so the cost price for you for that book is the cost at which you brought it, at the discounted cost. So if you give 50% discount so whatever you bought it that you pay Zakaat when you sell it, then you get 50% profit, or may be many a times the books aren’t sold so you have to keep a sale and then sell the book at 40% discount sometimes you have to sell it at a loss, you purchase at 50% discount, you sell at 60% discount and especially you take out then books which are there lying with you for may be 5 years or 6 years or 8 years so imagine you pay 8 years Zakaat on the higher side and then you sell it at a discounted rate so I agree more with those group of scholars who say that you pay a Zakaat on what you actually paid and then if the cost price increases…