Morocco Implements Tax Withholding for Doctors Amid Low Compliance Rates

Only 11% of doctors file their tax returns, said Fouzi Lekjaa, the minister delegate in charge of the budget during the adoption by the House of Representatives of the 2023 Finance Bill in second reading, reports the Arabic-language daily Assabah. Based on this rather unflattering observation, the government has decided to replace the tax return with withholding at source, one of the recommendations of the national tax conference. "Withholding at source has become a means for the government to fight tax evasion. Liberal professionals must pay tax at a rate of 10%, the doctor or lawyer paying less tax than the civil servant," said the official.

Some professionals are up in arms against this formula which, according to them, would be detrimental. The minister tries to reassure them: "On the contrary, the tax return has, with figures to back it up, encouraged tax evasion. Withholding at source has nothing to do with fragility, as claimed by certain professionals who say that if this formula is applied, it will weigh heavily on their revenues. We must not turn a blind eye, it is millions of Moroccans in the rural world who are truly suffering from precariousness, because they own nothing."