Lawyers in Jordan raise objection to new billing system

AMMAN The Jordan Bar Association (JBA) on Wednesday said it was still awaiting the governments response to its demand to either abolish the new billing system or exclude lawyers from its ambit.

President of the JBA Mazen Irsheidat said the association will resort to escalatory measures to defend lawyers and their profession if the government press ahead with its plan to include attorneys to the billing system.

The new system will require attorneys to issue an invoice to clients for each service, even though courts operate through their own software that proves the work of each lawyer, as well as several ways for knowing the cases handled by attorneys, Irsheidat told The Jordan Times over the phone.

He labelled the new system as "unfruitful and that treats lawyers as traders".

The billing system will use a comprehensive electronic payment system that will issue an invoice for every service or sales purchase made from any sector. The system was adopted alongside the updated Income Tax Law to handle tax evasion given that the Income and Sales Tax Department was able to collect around $256 million last year, solely by pursuing tax evasion from some sectors.

Also on Tuesday, the Amman Chamber of Commerce (ACC) issued a statement demanding the postponement of the billing system until early next year instead of the initially agreed date of July 2019.

The ACC stated that the billing system constitutes an administrative burden on commercial and service organisations. It added that its appeal for postponement takes into consideration the request of various associations and societies for an extension to apply the regulations of the new system in an easy form.

The ACC also made clear that in the case of any impracticability to postpone the work of the billing system for any reason whether legal or technical, the ACC requests, at least, postponment of the penalties from the income tax law until the end of next year.

The ACC reaffirmed its full commitment against tax invasion and the importance of fighting it in all possible ways.

The chamber of commerce added that it is willing to cooperate with the income and sales tax department to hold workshops to raise awareness about the billing system to ensure that it is applied in the required form.