Marrakech – The two Moroccans, Raja Khairat and Hiba, chose to enter the labor market as two business pioneers or the self -contractor system, the first in the press and media sector, and the second in the field of home furniture.
Raja tells “Al -Jazeera Net” that she cannot go back 3 years after the start of her experience, despite the difficulties she faces, and that her passion for her profession drives her to continue.
As for Heba, she was able to achieve an important leap after she benefited from administrative and tax privileges at the beginning of her work, as it turned into the establishment of a company when the size of its activity grew, and its annual transactions number reached approximately 570 thousand dirhams (57 thousand dollars) in a period of less than one year.
She tells Al -Jazeera Net that the self -contractor system gives the opportunity to gradually adapt to the official work environment, without exposure to great complications, by issuing bills, dealing with management and organizing matters in an easy and simple way, but it needs to keep pace with social, economic and digital developments.
In 2015, the Moroccan government launched a self -contractor system, with the aim of helping to reduce unemployment and encourage free and independent work among young people, and thus enhance the entrepreneurship system, value professions and establish development opportunities.
The self -contractor practices a professional activity individually, and invests his money and experience.
The contractor is a maker, merchant, or service provider who works for his account only legally, and he benefits from a legal, computational and comprehensive system, provided that his annual transactions number does not exceed 200 thousand dirhams (20 thousand dollars) in providing services, or 500 thousand dirhams (50 thousand dollars) In industrial, commercial and craft activities, it can also obtain funding from loan institutions, with social protection must be involved.
The self -contracting differs from the rest of the contracts, including the small and very small contracting, with the number of workers (one worker who holds the contractor), a small transaction number, by exemption from adherence to the commercial registry, and by performing a 1%reduced tax.
This experience is a pioneer in the Arab world, and it constitutes an integrated legal, administrative, and tax system, and helps to increase economic returns and help young people working to integrate into the organized economy.
He added that the experiment was very popular at the beginning of its launch, but with the successive years the need to develop it in both legal and administrative terms.
According to the data of the Ministry of Commerce, the number of registrants one year after the start of the system (2016) reached more than 40,000 people, which was twice what was expected.
85% of the self -contractors perform their activities permanently, and 50% of them settle in the economic attraction between the cities of Casablanca and Quneitra, and about half of the registered in their residential role.
The system is dominated by the trade sector 45%, followed by the service sector 27%, the industry 24%, then the traditional industry sector 4%.
Success and stumbling
After 10 years, the government emphasizes the ability to continue the self -contractor system to revive the national economy and consider it a lever for integration into the organized economy.
During the discussion of the Finance Law 2025, the delegated minister in charge of the budget highlighted, during the discussion of the Finance Law 2025, that the number of self -contractors exceeded 430 thousand until the end of 2023, with more than 30 new contractors registered during the first eight months of 2024.
Despite the growth of the number of registered people in the early years, a decrease has been observed since 2021, as stated in a report of the Economic, Social and Environmental Council (an official consulting institution).
This is attributed to the restrictions imposed on the transaction number and employment, which hinder the ability of the self -contractors to develop their projects.
The report added that the approval of tax reforms in the Finance Law of 2023, to reduce the lack of declaration of self -contracting workers, has negatively affected the competitive tax concession.
Difficulties
As for the President of the National Union of Self -Contractors (Professional Authority), Rashid Baloch determines for “Al -Jazeera Net” the difficulties of the self -contracting below from the other:
- The self -contractor is subject to an income tax of 1% of the annual business number, while the new financial bill has approved a 30% tax on the amounts that exceed 80 thousand dirhams (8 thousand dollars) of the contractor’s transactions with the customer himself, which is a great injustice for the contractor.
- A large percentage of the tax that benefits the chambers of commerce, industrial and service, but the contractor is deprived of the constitutional right to vote and representation within these institutions, and also within the second chamber of parliament (the House of Advisors).
- Entry in unequal competition with the rest of the contracts regarding low -value demand bonds, and rather it was allocated to the self -contractor.
- Deprivation of commercial registration to benefit from the commercial court recognition.
- The self -contractor receives the negative certificate of the brand, but is obligated to pay quarterly sums (every 3 months) to maintain commercial ownership.
- The self -contractor records his home is a address of the correspondence, and the tax is calculated based on this address, which may be in a commercial place with companies, which raises the value of the tax without taking into account the annual transactions number.
- Performing the premiums of engaging in social security, even with no achievement of any profits, or their rise in proportion to the high number of transactions, without looking at the expenses of the self -contractor.
- Deprivation of housing, car and consumption loans, until declaring a transaction number approaches the number of corporate transactions, not the self -contractor.
- Daily suffering with entering the digital platform for the self -settlement contractor, may force the self -contractor to perform a fine of delay.
Public deals
The transformation from the self -contract to the company, as happened with the young woman, remains, the ambition of every investor starts from scratch, but that is not always available to everyone due to the difficulties of accessing adequate financing and public deals.
The academic Hamida says that the legislator allowed the self -contractor to benefit from a percentage of them, especially in the field of supplies in which the majority of workers work in this system, but the mechanism for activating this right is still not visible.
The Economic, Social and Environmental Council proposes to create a stock exchange to encourage self -contractors and very small contracting to provide joint nominations to reach public deals, with the enactment of the ability to deduct the value -added tax from tax -subject profits for the benefit of self -contractors, in order to encourage the demand for this formula of contracting.
The university professor is due to emphasizing the importance of creating professional federations for this category, and the possibility of integrating self -contracting to strengthen them, growth and develop them while staying on the same administrative and tax stimuli.
Intonation
Please constantly develop its professional skills, but it cannot do more than one work that requires the development of its subjective contracting, nor the search for financial resources, so she is forced to work with pay in another company to cover its expenses.
Raja’s desires come to improve its position, identical to the recommendations of the Economic, Social and Environmental Council to raise the annual transactions number for the self -contractor as permitted, and enabling it to run 2 or 3 procedures.
Moroccan academic Mohamed Hamida says that the Moroccan legislator has betrayed the tax cuts of motivation, but it is not sufficient.
He sees the necessity to diversify the sources of financing; Because relying on traditional loans exhausts contracting, especially if the work is in the beginning.
It calls for the approval of financial, technical and technical support to finance and follow up on the self -contractor until the stage of financial and administrative stability, and the incorporation of the contracting with the economic environment, while linking it at the digital level to all departments, whether financing institutions, transferred guarantees or accounting documents.
It emphasizes the role of the chambers of commerce, industrial and service in educating young people who hold projects in light of the self -contractor system in the work methods and organizing it, ways of investment and access to sufficient financing, especially since they are mostly without previous experiences.
The academic concludes that the bet is not only to register 400,000 young people in this system, which is an important number, but also on their steadfastness in this choice in light of the challenges of the national economy, the challenges of inflation, the high prices and competition.
