Starting from its role of monitoring and evaluating public policies in the Kingdom, national civil society, through three major associations, contributed its grist to the mill by sharing its recommendations for the 2023 finance bill.
The Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH), Transparency Morocco and Espace Associatif have sent a note to this effect to the head of government, Aziz Akhannouch, and the presidents of the parliamentary groups as well as the trade union representatives, where they express ” their duty to formulate proposals in order to achieve a fair and balanced finance law”.
The three associations raised several points, in particular the fate of the conclusions emanating from the third assizes of taxation, in particular those having an impact on rights, and which enabled the stakeholders to agree on several points, including the consolidation of the principle of equality in tax matters, respect for the principle of transparency and the right to information, the introduction of the principle of tax progressivity, the equitable distribution of the tax burden according to the real capacities of each individual and finally the revision of the costs and brackets of income tax to support the purchasing power of people with very low incomes as well as the middle class.
While emphasizing that the PLF 2023 is a continuation, has adopted the same style and taken the same direction as the previous finance laws, offering no practical procedure of what is nicknamed “the construction site of the State social”, the three associations wanted to share their proposals with the government.
In this memorandum, the three associations propose to revise the income tax brackets by raising the percentage for large incomes, and lowering it for minimum and average wages, to raise the ceiling for exempted persons to guarantee additional income and thereby strengthening purchasing power, reducing social disparities, integrating a gender approach and eliminating all forms of tax discrimination against women.
They also recommend lowering the value added tax (VAT) and the domestic consumption tax (TIC) on local products, in order to relieve the tax burden of categories with a minimum or average income, and support their purchasing power. , while increasing the rates imposed on luxury goods in order to maintain a certain budgetary balance.
There is also talk, according to the three associations, of exempting fuels from value added tax and domestic consumption tax, while lowering the profit margin of traders in petroleum products, as a solution to alleviate the crisis caused by the rise in prices that only the consumer suffers, while traders take advantage of undeserved profits, thus advocating price caps that take purchasing power into consideration.
Likewise, they advocate the establishment of a tax regime on wealth and non-productive or speculative assets, the reduction of the income tax and corporate tax exemption ceilings operating in the agricultural sector , which is stopped by article 46 of the general tax code, at 5 million Dhs, as the transaction figure currently in progress, to reduce it to 1 million dirhams in order to achieve social justice.
The note also recommends intensifying the control procedures on large companies, through the increase in the number of inspectors and the strengthening of transparency at the level of the tax directorate in order to put an end to tax leakage and tax evasion. , which have become an almost general rule among the people concerned, with the exception of employees who pay nearly 75% of the value of income tax through withholding tax.
It is also about putting an end to the rise in debt resulting from the absence of any necessary tax reform, and the waste of resources, since the three associations express their fear of the increase in the level of debt and its probable negative impact. on the national economy and on future generations, calling for alternative solutions to be found within the national economy to preserve financial and social balances instead of resorting to debt as an easy solution to bridge the gap.
And finally, the three associations call for an end to the soap opera of privatizations whose successive crises, such as covid-19, have shown the impact on the economic, social, cultural and environmental rights of citizens, and to activate the treatment of problems inherited from the older generation, in particular the resumption of public institutions and activities transferred to the private sector and the resumption of the activity of the La Samir refinery as a public establishment.