Do you need a license to buy and sell gold?
If you only buy and sell a small amount of gold for daily use, you don't need to go through any formalities. Generally speaking, there is no clear crime of reselling gold in Chinese law, but smuggling gold constitutes the crime of smuggling precious metals. If the business procedures are incomplete, buying and selling gold in large quantities will constitute the crime of illegal business operation.
How to identify the crime of smuggling precious metals
The crime of smuggling precious metals refers to the act of smuggling precious metals such as gold and silver, which are prohibited from being exported by the state.
(A) the boundaries between this crime and non-crime
To distinguish the two, the first thing is whether the actor has a clear understanding of whether the articles transported, carried and mailed out of the country belong to precious metals. If you don't know it's precious metal, even if you carry, transport or mail it out of the country, it can't be considered as a crime of smuggling precious metal. Secondly, it depends on the quantity of smuggled precious metals. Although smuggling precious metals constitutes a crime in principle, it cannot be absolute. Smuggling precious metals is not considered a crime if the amount is particularly small, the circumstances are obviously minor and the harm is not great.
(two) the identification of anti-smuggling behavior by means of violence or threat.
Whoever smuggles precious metals and resists the investigation by customs officers by violence or threats shall be punished for several crimes in accordance with Article 157 of the Criminal Law.
There is no clear crime of reselling gold in Chinese law, but if gold is smuggled, it constitutes the crime of smuggling precious metals, and if the business procedures are incomplete, it constitutes the crime of illegal business.
1. The crime of smuggling precious metals refers to the act of violating customs regulations, evading customs supervision, illegally transporting, carrying and mailing precious metals whose export is prohibited by the state, and undermining the state's foreign trade management. The object of this crime is the system of prohibiting the export of precious metals in the national foreign trade control. Its object is gold, silver or other precious metals whose export is prohibited by the state. Other precious metals here refer to precious metals such as platinum, iridium, osmium, ruthenium, rhodium, titanium and palladium. Except for gold and silver prohibited by the state.
2. The crime of illegal business operation refers to illegal business operation without permission, such as dealing in franchise, monopoly commodities or other commodities with restricted trading, buying and selling import and export licenses, import and export certificates of origin, business licenses or other approval documents stipulated by laws and administrative regulations, and engaging in other illegal business activities, disrupting market order, and the circumstances are serious. Subjectively, this crime is intentionally constituted and has the purpose of seeking illegal interests, which are the two main contents of this crime.
If the actor buys and sells the business license because he doesn't understand the laws and regulations, he should not be punished as this crime, and the competent department should investigate his administrative responsibility. Then let's extend this question: legal gold trading At present, there are two kinds of legal gold market transactions in China, spot trading and futures trading. Spot gold mainly refers to gold nuggets (bricks), gold ingots, gold bars and gold coins.
Most of the gold transactions newly mined by private or gold mining enterprises are physical transactions. The gold purchased by customers can be stored and transferred by themselves, or entrusted to a gold merchant for safekeeping. Spot transactions are generally delivered immediately after the transaction or completed within two days. The price of spot gold trading is special, which can be divided into pricing trading and quotation trading in the gold market. The characteristic of pricing transaction is to provide customers with a single transaction price, that is, there is no bid-ask spread. According to the price of a single transaction, customers can buy and sell freely, and gold merchants only charge a small commission.
Quoting transactions are divided into buying price and selling price. Pricing transactions are only valid for a specified period of time, ranging from one minute to one hour, depending on the supply and demand of market customers. The price of gold in other gold markets in the world is set according to the pricing level of London market and the supply and demand situation of this market. Gold futures trading is not delivered immediately after trading, but both parties sign a contract, pay the deposit and then deliver on the scheduled date.
Legal basis:
Article 151 of the Criminal Law of People's Republic of China (PRC)
Whoever smuggles weapons, ammunition, nuclear materials or counterfeit currency shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than seven years and shall also be fined or confiscated;
If the circumstances are especially serious, he shall be sentenced to life imprisonment and confiscation of property;
If the circumstances are relatively minor, he shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than seven years and shall also be fined.
Smuggling cultural relics, precious metals such as gold and silver, or precious animals and their products prohibited by the state, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than five years but not more than ten years and shall also be fined;
If the circumstances are especially serious, he shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than 10 years or life imprisonment, and his property shall be confiscated;
If the circumstances are relatively minor, they shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than five years and fined.
Whoever smuggles precious plants and their products and other goods and articles whose import and export are prohibited by the state shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than five years or criminal detention and shall also, or shall only, be fined;
If the circumstances are serious, he shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than five years and fined.
If a unit commits the crime specified in this article, it shall be fined, and the directly responsible person in charge and other directly responsible personnel shall be punished in accordance with the provisions of each paragraph of this article.