Payment terms: Naming and Shaming looming ahead
Draft law No. 69-21, amending Law 15-95, on payment terms was finally voted on Wednesday, April 26, at second reading by the House of Representatives. The piece of legislation had been voted in plenary session, on February 7, by the House of Councilors.
The only change introduced by the second chamber of the Parliament is of a semantic nature and relates to the replacement of the term ‘certify’ by ‘ sign off’, since only chartered accountants are authorized by law to certify accounts, a provision applying to the list of delinquencies. The next step involves the publication of the law in the Official Gazette. The main novelty of the project is through the assessment of a fine instead of late payment compensation for the benefit of the Treasury. The amount of the financial penalty will be equivalent to the key rate of the central bank (Bank Al-Maghrib), which has been set at 3% since March 23, from the end of the first month of delay, increased by 0.85% for each month or fraction of a month of additional delay. Thus, in the case of an invoice paid three months late, the fine would be 3% + (0.85% x 3), making a total of 5.55%. The fine will be calculated according to the amount of the invoice or the unpaid balance. The fine must be paid spontaneously at the same time as the filing of the declaration provided for in Article 78-4 of the draft law. The fine in question is suspended for the case of invoices that are the subject of a dispute submitted to the commercial courts until the pronouncement of a final judgment having acquired the effect of res judicata. The meter of the pecuniary fine spins again as of the final judgment. It remains to be specified that this fine will only apply to invoices of 10,000 Dirhams (USD 1,000) excluding tax and more, that have been issued from January 2025 onwards. However, the average amount of invoices for small enterprises is often below 10,000 Dirhams.
In any case, at less than 10,000 Dirhams including tax, no fine will be assessed. “This is a transitional period of two years before the generalization of the law. It should also be noted that the law comes into force as soon as it is published in the Official Gazette for companies with a turnover of more than 50 million Dirhams ( USD 5 million) excluding taxes, regardless of the amount of the invoice”, explains Mohamed Chorfi, a chartered accountant. The second novelty of the bill concerns its scope. The draft legislation targets suppliers who are legal entities and natural persons suppliers with an annual turnover of more than 2 million Dirhams (USD 200,000) excluding tax. Below this threshold, economic operators are excluded from the scope of the law.
Hassan EL ARIF
