Morocco Eases Penalties for Bounced Checks in New Tax Amnesty Program

This decree-law, designed by the staff of Moulay Hafid El Elalamy, provides until March 31, 2021, a tax fine set at 0.5% of the value of the check(s) against 5% on a first payment incident notice. As for the second notice, it amounts to 1% instead of 10%, while for the third notice and more, 1.5% of the amount of the disputed check will have to be paid, instead of the initially planned 20%.

According to Bank Al-Maghrib (BAM), payment incidents through checks are recurrent in Morocco. In 2019, they increased by 2.2% in number (470,515), i.e. 13.8 billion dirhams. During the same period, 111,375 checks were cleared, for an amount of 1.7 billion dirhams. In total, 689,045 bans on issuing checks were established, of which 87.2% came from individuals.

Published in the Official Gazette on October 1st, this decree-law was adopted by the Council of Government on September 24, 2020 and the first Chamber of Parliament, five days later. It guarantees a reduction of nearly 90% of the penalties to be paid following the issuance of checks without provision.