Morocco Delays Implementation of Global Tax Transparency Measure

Faced with globalization, taxpayers have the possibility of circumventing tax obligations in order to flee the jurisdictions of their residences and at the same time, flee the payment of taxes due. This creates great damage for the countries concerned. To prevent the expansion of this phenomenon, the United States had adopted in 2010 the Facta (Foreign Account Tax Compliant Act), requiring banking and financial institutions to report to the US tax authorities all financial transactions domiciled in a bank account held by an American citizen or resident. The same goes for the OECD countries, reports Ecoactu.

In this sense, like several others, in 2013, Morocco joined the multilateral convention on mutual administrative assistance in tax matters. But before that, the kingdom must regularize the tax situation of taxpayers with assets abroad. Thus, in 2014, Morocco carried out a first amnesty operation that set a liberating contribution to assets domiciled abroad. An operation that allowed the repatriation of assets worth 28 billion dirhams and generated 2.3 billion dirhams.

In 2020, a new amnesty operation was scheduled and resulted in 1959 declarations for around 6 billion dirhams. But, due to the health crisis, the revenue from this second operation is below the first. Minister of Economy and Finance Mohammed Benchaâboun did not fail to present this liberating contribution as a last chance for those wishing to comply, so as not to be exposed by the exchange of data with the OECD countries.

Regarding the progress of Morocco’s compliance process with the OECD countries, a source indicated that the country has requested the postponement of the exchange of data concerning it to 2022, due to the health crisis. But for now, these are large sums that escape the Moroccan tax authorities.