If you redeem your Sovereign Gold Bonds (SGBs) through RBI, the capital gains are completely tax-free, regardless of whether you bought them directly from RBI or from the secondary market.
So, there could be three situations.
a) You wait for the SGBs to mature
SGBs mature in eight years. On maturity, the capital gains are tax-free irrespective of whether you purchased them from RBI or through the secondary market.
If you bought three-year-old SGBs from the secondary market, you’d have to wait for five more years until maturity to earn tax-free capital gains.
b) Premature redemption after 5 years
The second option is to sell the gold bonds to the RBI after completion of 5 years from the original issue date. The RBI announces certain dates where you can redeem your bonds with them. In this case as well, capital gains will be tax free even if you bought them from secondary market.
c) Selling gold bonds in the secondary markets
In case you sell your gold bonds in the secondary market, you are liable to pay tax on the profit made on the investment. The tax rate will be decided based on the holding period.
In your case, since both the redemptions are being made via RBI, there’ll be no tax applicable on the capital gains.