The government rejected the amendment relating to the increase in the threshold of the annual turnover of self-employed people capped at 80,000 dirhams. This decision should, according to the executive, guarantee tax transparency and fight against fraud.
On Wednesday, November 13, the deputies of the Finance and Economic Development Committee, meeting in the House of Representatives, adopted the first part of the finance bill (PLF) for the year 2025.
More than 540 amendments were submitted during this session, including that relating to self-entrepreneurs which proposes to increase the turnover threshold, beyond which a discharge rate of 30% applies for services. provided to the same customer. Indeed, this amendment proposes to raise to 100,000 dirhams the turnover threshold for self-employed entrepreneurs currently set at 80,000 dirhams, something which the government has not approved.
In fact, the said amendment was rejected by the executive despite the support it received from the parliamentary groups, both in the majority and in the opposition. According to the government, increasing the turnover threshold could lead to abuse and increase the risk of tax fraud.
In this sense, the Minister Delegate in charge of the Budget, Faouzi Lekjaa, indicated to the Committee on Finance and Economic Development that this decision aims to avoid potential tax abuses and preserve the self-employed regime. Underlining in this sense, that an increase in the threshold without adequate supervision could encourage certain economic actors to abuse the self-employed regime to avoid tax obligations. Thus, certain companies could massively resort to self-employed status in order to avoid hiring employees benefiting from social rights and benefits.
In this sense, Lekjaa recalled that the said decision does not aim to deprive self-employed people of new opportunities, but it seeks to maintain a healthy and fair employment framework where young people are hired in a manner consistent with the rules of the labor market. , while ensuring that the self-employed regime does not become a pretext for disguised employment that circumvents social and tax legislation.
The minister also indicated that the tax treatment of self-employed people still remains limited, emphasizing that adjustments are now necessary, especially since certain professions, such as those in the cultural sector, generate income often exceeding the current ceiling. . Thus, the government plans to strengthen the legal framework to deal with these issues and launch an in-depth debate on the evolution of this regime which now has 434,289 self-employed people with 30,297 new registrations during the first eight months of 2024, thus generating tax revenue of 37 million dirhams.
