HIBAPRESS – A. Muhayyawi
The Court of First Instance in Fez issued a judicial ruling on Friday evening in one of the cases that attracted public attention, after dismantling the activity of a "dormant" company involved in trading fake invoices, in one of the methods of tax evasion witnessed by some commercial sectors.
The court ruled to sentence the owner of the company, nominally specialized in selling building materials, to six months in prison, after his involvement in supplying a number of dealers with fake invoices was proven in exchange for commissions of 15% of the value of each invoice. Sources informed HIBAPRESS revealed that the investigations showed that the company did not carry out any actual activity, and was only used as a front to issue invoices without real services or goods, which enabled a number of beneficiaries to use them to mislead the tax administration and reduce their tax obligations illegally. In addition to the prison sentence, the ruling obligated the accused to pay the amount of 19,547,906.19 dirhams in favor of the tax administration, which represents the value of the tax debt resulting from the alleged fraud and manipulation operations. This ruling comes in the context of the judicial and tax authorities intensifying their control over shell companies that are used as tools for tax evasion, within the framework of national efforts aimed at protecting public funds and combating financial fraud networks.
