Investment gold, a sunken treasure of 195 billion in Italian coffers

A hidden treasure, in the true sense of the word. Between safety deposit boxes in banks - above all - private safes and various deposits, in Italia there would be at least 1,200-1,500 tonnes of investment gold in private hands, traceable estimates based on demonstrable purchases, even in the past. The conditional is a must, between estimates and hypotheses that go as high as 4,800 tonnes (including non-traceable, jewellery and processed 'domestic' gold), but the fact remains that the assets in bullion available to families today represent at least half of those held by the Bank of Italy (2,452 tonnes, of which only 44.86% is held in Italy, between system constraints and risk diversification). At current values, private investments in the metal that is historically the 'safe haven asset' par excellence, oscillate between 156 and 195 billion euro, with a projection of further rapid growth. Submerged wealth, with very limited marketability. A black hole of finance.

The prudential estimate of the hidden treasure at the end of 2025 comes, most recently, from a study by Antico - the National Association for the Protection of the Gold Sector - and is made by cross-referencing sector data on professional movements, imports, and metal bank flows. "It is a cautious estimate," says the president of Antico, Nunzio Ragno, "and in any case we are convinced that it is sufficiently representative of a world that, because of the way it was born and has developed over the decades, has remained substantially untraceable," but with trends that are nonetheless peculiar: until the turn of the century, the typical forms of holding were mainly monetised gold (sterling, marenghi, krugerrands), with a traditional reserve value function, often linked to generational transfers and small family savings. Since the year 2000, however, there has been a diversification of the forms of possession; although the component represented by coins remains significant, the share of gold held in the form of ingots and plaques of various denominations has grown exponentially, also facilitated by regulatory developments (Law 7/2000) which liberalised the investment gold market in Italia, exempting it from VAT (for transactions between private individuals).

Paradoxically, today the push for the regularisation of hidden deposits comes from large holders - conventionally identifiable in holders of 50 kg and over - for reasons that are easy to guess: the possibility of realising significant capital gains. Commerciability which, under current rules, is 'inadvisable' because of the direct tax implications - the fixed rate of 26% on the transacted amount - and indirect ones (the reporting of the operation to the Financial Information Unit, anti-money laundering, and to the Anagrafe dei rapporti finanziari). the alternative," an entrepreneur from Triveneto with a well-stocked vault confides to Il Sole 24 Ore, "is to sell outside official channels, but it means coming into contact with disreputable environments, something that no sensible person would do" (translated, cashing in cash money laundering).

Having failed for political reasons to bring the amnesty into the Budget Law - with the provision of the option to frank with a 12.5% tax on the purchase value of the precious metal - but with the potential for revenue on a theoretical taxable amount of between 156 and 195 billion, it remains inevitable to think of alternative paths of emersion. "Paths that must take into account that in the majority of cases," explains Nunzio Ragno, "and net of hereditary, traceable passages, there is a lack of purchase bonds". According to Antico's president, 'the most effective route to take would be a zero revaluation', i.e. a mere declaration of possession without tax consequences but with the temporal determination of the value, in order to 'allow a gigantic mass of wealth to be put back into circulation on which to then apply the 26% rate on the capital gain realised from emersion at the time of sale'. The alternative? 'Leaving unproductive wealth in the vaults or, worse, increasing money laundering operations'.