Compulsory declaration of assets: Urgent need to upgrade the system

The Court of Auditors has once again stressed the urgent need to overhaul the system of compulsory declaration of assets.

In its latest activity report, the Court emphasized “ the need to develop a unified and comprehensive legal system, integrating the various categories of persons subject to mandatory declaration of assets ”. The Court also stressed the importance of “ overcoming the difficulties encountered in the process of drawing up lists of persons liable to declare assets, and establishing a procedure for drawing up and updating these lists, as well as setting a deadline for uploading them to the electronic platform dedicated to tracking declarations”.

The Court had also carried out an evaluation study of its responsibilities in relation to the compulsory declaration of assets. Its conclusions “ highlighted the urgent need to remedy a number of shortcomings ”. It was with this in mind that, last July, the Court sent an injunction to the Ministry in charge of Digital Transition and Administrative Reform. The injunction in question focused on ways of improving the legal system governing this scheme.

In concrete terms, the observations made by the Court of Auditors concerning the failure of certain entities to comply with the obligation to declare their assets were confirmed in its latest activity report. This is despite the introduction of a formal notice system for recalcitrant taxpayers. The latest report shows, for example, that 214 of the 860 civil servants and public officials who acknowledged receipt of the formal notices filed their declaration of assets. This represents a regularization rate of just 24.8%. At the same time, the formal notices sent to 1,116 taxpayers in default revealed that 256 of them were no longer on active service before 2019, the year in which the electronic platform dedicated to monitoring returns filed and the lists of taxpayers who have failed to meet their filing obligations will be set up.

“ These data once again confirm the shortcomings noted by the Court in terms of updating the lists of taxable persons loaded onto the platform by Government authorities. This undermines the effectiveness of the mission to follow up on formal notices, and the timeliness of the data on which it is based ”, says the Court’s report.

Mohamed Ali Mrabi