Taxes: Last deadline for amnesty
Tax lesson for lawyers. The Casablanca Regional Tax Department held a meeting on Friday, December 23, with the Casablanca Bar Association at the Bouskoura club. Several hundred practitioners came to listen religiously to the explanations of the tax services about their new tax system.
At the beginning of his speech, Hassan El Ktini, interprefectural director of taxes, explained that the tax system in Morocco is based on the principle of spontaneous declaration of taxpayers within the framework of the rule of law. The meeting was an opportunity to recall that lawyers who practice as natural persons and who do not yet have a tax ID have until December 31 to report to the tax services to register for the business tax. In return, they will benefit from total amnesty on taxes due on income generated before the date of its identification which will have to take place no later than December 31.
“The Regional Tax Department and the (bar) association have put in place a procedure for the regularization of the lawyers concerned and we have already started to receive the files of those interested. We hope to continue at this pace to ensure the success of this operation”, explained El Ktini during the meeting.
In fact, the amnesty does not only target lawyers, but all persons exercising an activity liable to income tax and who are still not enrolled on the tax registers. In accordance with the agreement between the administration and the lawyers, the latter have the choice between two options.
The first relates to the spontaneous payment of deposits to the clerk at the cash desk of the court on behalf of the collector of the tax administration. The amount of the deposit has been reduced to 100 DH (US$10) for each file in a single payment for each case for which a lawyer has received all or part of his or her fees. Payment occurs when filing or registering a request, an appeal, an entrustment, or assistance before the courts. A single payment covers all the stages of a trial, i.e. the different levels of jurisdiction. Lawyers are exempted from the payment of installments for files relating to orders on motions and reports in accordance with the provisions of article 148 of the Code of civil procedure, cases exempted from the legal tax or benefiting from legal aid. According to article 173-III of the General Tax Code, the payment is made for these cases only after the execution of the final judgment. Lawyers who have just obtained a tax identification number are exempt from tax installments for 60 months.
The second option consists of making a spontaneous payment to the tax authorities via the internet before the end of the month following the end of the financial year, i.e. January 2024 in respect of income for the year 2023. The amount of the installments, set at 100 Dirhams, is multiplied by the number of cases handled during a financial year and for which lawyers have received part or all of the fees on the basis of the lists communicated to the tax authorities.
Hassan EL ARIF
