Look up Article 63 Jordan income tax law and you reach the provision on the fine for filing the tax return late. Article 63 of the Income Tax Law does not set one figure for everyone. It gives the fine a ceiling that changes with the legal status of the taxpayer, and it separates natural persons, legal persons, and public and private shareholding companies.
In short, Article 63 of Income Tax Law No. 34 of 2014, as amended (the Income Tax Law), caps the fine for filing the tax return late at JOD 100 for a natural person, JOD 300 for a legal person other than public and private shareholding companies, and JOD 1,000 for public and private shareholding companies. It is an article of the Income Tax Law, not one of the invoicing texts.
This article reads Article 63 of the Income Tax Law on its own. It explains the three categories and how to place a taxpayer among them, what it means for each figure to be a ceiling, where the article sits in relation to the law and to the invoicing regulation, and how it differs from Articles 64 and 66 of the Income Tax Law, which deal with invoicing violations. It closes by setting out what Article 63 of the Income Tax Law does not answer, so that its text is not made to carry more than it says.
What Article 63 Jordan Income Tax Law Provides
The Arabic heading of Article 63 of the Income Tax Law refers to submitting the tax return. Below is its Arabic text, followed by the English translation published by the Income and Sales Tax Department (ISTD).
«تفرض على المكلف الذي يتأخر عن تقديم الإقرار بموجب أحكام هذا القانون غرامه وبحد اقصى مقدارها مائة دينار للشخص الطبيعي وثلاثمائة دينار للشخص الاعتباري باستثناء الشركات المساهمة العامة والخاصة وألف دينار للشركات المساهمة العامة والخاصة»
ISTD’s English translation of the Income Tax Law, which ISTD labels an unofficial translation and under which the Arabic version prevails in case of conflict, reads: “The taxpayer who is late in submitting the tax return in accordance with the provisions of this Law shall be fined up to a maximum of one hundred dinars for the natural person, three hundred dinars for the legal person except public and private shareholding companies, and a thousand dinars for public and private shareholding companies.”
Article 63 of the Income Tax Law deals with a single event, filing the tax return late. The consequence it attaches to that event is a fine with a maximum. The only variable in the text is the legal status of the taxpayer, and the ceiling rises from one category to the next as the table shows.
The table makes one point clear. Article 63 of the Income Tax Law does not split taxpayers into two groups, natural and legal persons, but into three. The third category is carved out of the second by express wording. Public and private shareholding companies are legal persons, and the text takes them out of the JOD 300 ceiling and gives them a higher one of their own.
It also shows that the highest ceiling is ten times the lowest. An individual taxpayer and a shareholding company fall under the same article for the same event, yet the most their fine can reach differs widely.
How to tell which of the three categories you are in
Article 63 of the Income Tax Law asks every taxpayer one question, which is their legal status. Placing a taxpayer takes two steps, and the exception is read before the general rule.
- Is the taxpayer an individual or an entity? An individual taxpayer is a natural person, and the ceiling is JOD 100. The test in the text of the article is the legal status of the taxpayer, not the kind of activity they carry on.
- If it is an entity, is it a public or private shareholding company? If so, the ceiling is JOD 1,000. A legal person outside those two kinds of company has a ceiling of JOD 300.
The order matters. A reader who starts from the general rule for legal persons would place a shareholding company under the JOD 300 ceiling, and that would be wrong, because the text excludes it from that ceiling by name. So ask first whether the entity is a shareholding company, then apply the legal-person ceiling to everything else.
The text of Article 63 of the Income Tax Law names no other test for telling taxpayers apart, such as the size of their income or their sector.
A ceiling, not an amount: what the maximum means
The three figures in Article 63 of the Income Tax Law are maximums, and that changes how they should be read. Each figure sets the most the fine can reach in its category. It does not set the amount imposed in any given case.
So it is not right to read the article as saying that an individual who files late pays JOD 100. What it says is that the fine does not exceed JOD 100. The same holds for the other two categories.
How the amount below the ceiling is set, and whether the fine is counted per late return or in some other way, is not stated in the text of the article. That is why we give no method of calculation here and build no calculation of the length of the delay on these figures. If you need that detail, go to the text of the law as ISTD publishes it.
Where Article 63 sits: the law and the regulation
Two texts carry the number 34, and telling them apart is the first step to placing Article 63 of the Income Tax Law correctly.
- Income Tax Law No. 34 of 2014, as amended, is the text that contains Article 63, together with Articles 64, 66 and 69 of the same law, which this article also refers to.
- Regulation No. 34 of 2019 on Organizing and Controlling Invoicing Affairs, as amended (Regulation 34/2019), is a different text. It was issued under paragraph (F) of Article 23 of Income Tax Law No. 34 of 2014.
Regulation 34/2019 sets no fine amounts. Article 15 of Regulation 34/2019 refers to the penalties in the law. Because the point turns on its exact wording, here is the Arabic text.
«يعاقب كل من لم يلتزم بإصدار الفاتورة وفق أحكام هذا النظام بالعقوبات المنصوص عليها في القانون»
In English, anyone who fails to issue the invoice in line with the provisions of this regulation is punished with the penalties set out in the law. No official English translation of this regulation was found; the English here is our rendering, and the Arabic text is the authority.
The event in Article 15 of Regulation 34/2019 is a failure to issue the invoice, which is not the event Article 63 of the Income Tax Law deals with. The referral in Article 15 of Regulation 34/2019 concerns the invoice. Article 63 of the Income Tax Law concerns the tax return.
To sum up, “Regulation 34” and “Law 34” are two different texts. Article 63 belongs to the Income Tax Law, not to Regulation 34/2019, and its subject is not the invoice.
Article 63 is not an invoicing fine: how it differs from Articles 64 and 66
Article 63 of the Income Tax Law sometimes appears next to the invoicing fines because it comes from the same law, and its figures then get mixed up with the figures for invoice violations. The comparison below sets the three articles of the Income Tax Law side by side, as the law states them.
Scroll the table sideways to see the remaining columns
The table shows three differences. The first is the event. Article 63 of the Income Tax Law concerns filing the tax return late, while Article 64 of the Income Tax Law lists among its cases refusing to issue an invoice or document when the recipient asks for it, and Article 66 of the Income Tax Law counts among its acts not issuing a proper invoice (فاتورة أصولية). The second is how the amount is set. Article 63 of the Income Tax Law sets a ceiling by the taxpayer’s legal status, Article 64 of the Income Tax Law sets a sum between two limits, and Article 66 of the Income Tax Law sets a sum equal to the tax difference. The third is repetition. The law doubles the amounts under Article 64 and adds imprisonment in steps under Article 66, and the text of Article 63 of the Income Tax Law contains no rule for repetition.
So the figures in Article 63 of the Income Tax Law should not be added to those of Articles 64 and 66 as if they formed one ladder of invoicing fines. The two tracks are separate, and each deals with a different event. Articles 64 and 66 of the Income Tax Law are covered in detail in our article on the penalties for not complying with the National Invoicing System (JoFotara).
Article 69: a fine does not replace the tax
Article 69 of the Income Tax Law provides that imposing a penalty or a fine does not exempt anyone from paying the tax and the amounts due. The rule is general in its wording, so it covers the fine for filing the tax return late as much as any other.
A taxpayer who files late and then pays the late-filing fine still owes the tax due. The fine is added to the original liability. It does not stand in for it.
Applying the article: three cases
The cases below show how Article 63 of the Income Tax Law applies to taxpayers of different legal status. They illustrate how to read the text. They are not calculations of an actual fine, because the article sets the ceiling, not the amount.
Case one: an individual taxpayer
A business owner trading under their own name files the tax return late. They are a natural person, so the ceiling is JOD 100. The correct reading is that the fine does not exceed JOD 100, not that it is necessarily JOD 100.
Case two: a legal person that is not a shareholding company
An entity with legal personality, which is neither a public nor a private shareholding company, files the tax return late. It falls in the second category, and its ceiling is JOD 300.
Case three: a public or private shareholding company
A shareholding company files the tax return late. The text takes it out of the general legal-person category, so its ceiling is JOD 1,000, not JOD 300.
In all three cases Article 69 of the Income Tax Law still applies, and the fine does not exempt the taxpayer from the tax. If filing late comes together with a violation in issuing invoices, that is a separate event governed by other articles, as the previous section explains.
What Article 63 Jordan income tax law does not answer
The limits of the reading are part of the answer. The questions below sit close to the subject of Article 63 of the Income Tax Law, but they fall outside it or outside what this article covers.
- Filing deadlines and who has to file. Article 63 of the Income Tax Law deals with the effect of filing late, not with the deadline itself. The full income tax picture, from the brackets to the return, is in our article Income Tax in Jordan.
- General Sales Tax returns. Article 63 belongs to the Income Tax Law, and this article does not cover how often General Sales Tax (GST) returns are filed, their deadlines or their fines.
- Other fines in the law. Fines for payment, remittance and other matters have their own articles and are outside this reading.
- How the amount below the ceiling is calculated. The text of Article 63 of the Income Tax Law does not say, as explained above.
Where Qoyod fits
Qoyod does not prepare the tax return or file it on your behalf, and the duty to file it on time stays with the taxpayer. What Qoyod Cloud Accounting Software offers on this side is financial reports that make the return easier to prepare.
On the invoicing side, Qoyod is integrated with the National Invoicing System (JoFotara). For a wider view of the system and how to connect your business to it, read our article Jordan’s National E-Invoicing System, or see how Qoyod works with JoFotara on our National Invoicing System page.
E-invoicing and full accounting in one system
Qoyod is integrated with the National Invoicing System (JoFotara). You issue your invoice in Jordanian dinars from Qoyod, it is booked to your ledgers automatically and sent to the system, and once it is accepted it comes back with a QR code from the Income and Sales Tax Department.
Frequently asked questions
What is Article 63 of Jordan’s Income Tax Law about?
Article 63 of the Income Tax Law deals with the fine for filing the tax return late. It sets a maximum for that fine that varies with the legal status of the taxpayer.
How much is the late-filing fine for a natural person?
Article 63 of the Income Tax Law caps the fine for a natural person at JOD 100. The figure is a ceiling, not a fixed amount.
What is the ceiling for companies?
The text distinguishes two kinds of company. Public and private shareholding companies have a ceiling of JOD 1,000, and other legal persons have a ceiling of JOD 300.
Is Article 63 one of the invoicing fines?
Article 63 of the Income Tax Law is not an invoicing fine. It concerns filing the tax return late, while invoicing violations are dealt with by Articles 64 and 66 of the same law.
Does paying the fine exempt you from the tax?
Paying the fine does not exempt you from the tax. Article 69 of the Income Tax Law provides that imposing a penalty or a fine does not exempt anyone from paying the tax and the amounts due.
Is Article 63 part of Regulation No. 34 of 2019 on invoicing?
Article 63 is not part of Regulation 34/2019. It is an article of Income Tax Law No. 34 of 2014, as amended. Regulation 34/2019 is a separate text issued under paragraph (F) of Article 23 of that law, and it sets no fine amounts.
References
- Income Tax Law No. 34 of 2014, as amended (in Arabic), Articles 63, 64, 66 and 69.
- Income and Sales Tax Department (ISTD), ISTD’s unofficial English translation of Law No. 34 of 2014 as amended by Law No. 38 of 2018, Article 63, p. 38 (the Arabic version prevails in case of conflict).
- Regulation No. 34 of 2019 on Organizing and Controlling Invoicing Affairs, as amended, consolidated text (in Arabic), Article 15.
