JoFotara Penalties: Articles 64 and 66 Explained

Ask about JoFotara penalties, the fines for not complying with the National Invoicing System (JoFotara), and you may expect a single number. In fact the number is not in the invoicing rules at all, and a business that breaks them does not face just one route.

In short, Regulation No. 34 of 2019 on Organizing and Controlling Invoicing Affairs, as amended (Regulation 34/2019), sets no fine amounts of its own. Article 15 of Regulation 34/2019 refers to the penalties set out in the law, and that law is Income Tax Law No. 34 of 2014, as amended (the Income Tax Law). Two of its articles bear directly on invoicing violations, Article 64 of the Income Tax Law, the failure fine, and Article 66 of the Income Tax Law, tax evasion.

This article explains both articles, where each one stops, how they differ, and what a violation costs beyond the fine schedule. It does not cover how to register in the system, who is exempt from it, or how to build an invoice archive. Each of those topics has its own article.

Why the invoicing regulation sets no amount

Article 15 of Regulation 34/2019 links the duty to issue invoices 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.

This is a referral, not a fine. Regulation 34/2019 describes the violation and leaves the penalty to the Income Tax Law.

The referral matters when you read any source. A page that attributes a fine amount to the invoicing regulation attributes it to a text that does not carry one. The amounts that matter here come from Income Tax Law No. 34 of 2014, as amended.

Article 64: the failure fine, JOD 200 to 500

Article 64 of the Income Tax Law imposes an additional tax of no less than JOD 200 and no more than JOD 500. The amount is not a tax on income and not a percentage of the invoice value. It is a sum imposed on the violation itself, somewhere within that range.

The cases listed in Article 64 of the Income Tax Law that relate to invoicing and record-keeping include the following.

• Failing to keep records or documents.
• Failing to register with the Income and Sales Tax Department (ISTD).
• Refusing to provide the records and documents that must be kept.
• Refusing to issue an invoice or document when the recipient asks for it.

Paragraph (b) of Article 64 of the Income Tax Law provides that the amounts are doubled on repetition. So the JOD 500 ceiling is not the end of the exposure. It is only the end of the range for a first violation.

One of these cases deserves a closer reading, refusing to issue the invoice when the recipient asks for it. The act described here depends on a request from the buyer, which makes it narrower than simply not issuing an invoice. Not issuing a proper invoice (فاتورة أصولية) in itself is something Article 66 of the Income Tax Law counts among the acts of tax evasion.

Article 66: the tax-evasion route

Article 66 of the Income Tax Law lists acts whose author is treated as having committed tax evasion. One of the acts it lists is that the taxpayer did not issue a proper invoice. 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: “Did not issue a proper invoice.”

The penalty on this route is different in kind from the failure fine. It is a compensatory fine equal to the tax difference. The amount is not held between two limits. It is tied to the tax difference that the act produced, so it is smaller when that difference is small and larger when it is large.

On repetition, Article 66 of the Income Tax Law adds imprisonment, in steps. The term is four months to one year for the second time, one to two years for the third, and two to three years for the fourth time and any after it. In the last two cases, discretionary mitigating reasons are not taken into account.

Two different routes: JoFotara penalties are not one number

Mixing up the two articles makes the risk look smaller or larger than it is. They differ on three points.

• What each route measures. Article 64 of the Income Tax Law measures an administrative failure, a duty that was not met. Article 66 of the Income Tax Law measures an act described as evasion.
• How the amount is set. Under Article 64 of the Income Tax Law, it is a sum between two limits, doubled on repetition. Under Article 66 of the Income Tax Law, it is derived from the tax difference.
• What is added on repetition. Article 64 of the Income Tax Law doubles the amounts. Article 66 of the Income Tax Law adds imprisonment in steps.

That is why the line “the fine can reach JOD 500” is true in itself. But it is the ceiling of one of the two routes, not the whole of what a violation brings. Presenting it as the full picture means basing a decision on half the text.

Article 69: a fine does not cancel 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. A sum paid as a fine is added to the original liability. It does not replace it, and this point is easy to miss when you estimate what a violation costs.

A nearby article that is not about invoicing: Article 63

Article 63 of the Income Tax Law sometimes comes up when fines are discussed. It concerns filing the tax return late, not invoicing, and its ceilings are different. 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.”

So the ceilings under Article 63 of the Income Tax Law are 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.

We mention Article 63 of the Income Tax Law for one reason only, so that its numbers are not read as invoicing fines. The act is different and the article is different.

Consequences outside the fine schedule

The statutory cost is the clearest part of the subject, but it is not always the heaviest. An invoice not issued through the National Invoicing System is not accepted as a tax document, and that has two direct effects.

• For the buyer. The buyer loses the deduction of the General Sales Tax (GST) paid on inputs, and the expense is not recognized for income tax purposes.
• For the seller. The seller faces exclusion from government tenders and public procurement, a commercial effect that appears in no fine schedule and is not measured in dinars.

These two effects explain why a buying company has reason to check its suppliers’ compliance before it accepts their invoices, and how one seller’s violation can turn into a problem across a whole purchasing cycle.

Responsibility does not rest with the seller alone

Article 10 of Regulation 34/2019 places responsibility for the invoice matching what actually happened on the seller and the buyer alike. The buyer is not a neutral party who receives a document and moves on. An invoice that the buyer knows does not match the facts concerns the buyer too.

What this article does not settle

The limits of what we read are part of the answer. The texts this article is built on do not settle the following points.

• Whether the fine under Article 64 of the Income Tax Law is counted for each non-compliant invoice separately or for the violation as a whole within a tax period.
• The period or scope within which a violation counts as a “repetition” that doubles the amounts under Article 64 of the Income Tax Law.
• The procedure for objecting to or appealing a fine decision.
• How exclusion from government tenders works, how long it lasts, and which body decides it.

On each of these points, the reference is the text in force and ISTD. Any number or procedure you read on these points that has no basis in the text should be checked before you rely on it.

Three practical takeaways

• Do not size the risk with one number. The first route sits between JOD 200 and JOD 500 and doubles on repetition. The second is derived from the tax difference and reaches imprisonment on repetition. The real risk is both routes together, plus the commercial effect.
• Manual entry adds to the chance of a violation. A violation is not always a decision. It can be an invoice that was never sent, or one that was rejected without anyone noticing.
• The invoice status is the evidence. An invoice without the QR code returned by ISTD is not complete, and finding that out on the day of issue costs far less than finding it out at audit.

How Qoyod reduces the chance of a violation

No provider can waive a fine or guarantee that an invoice will be accepted, because the decision rests with ISTD. What accounting software can do is reduce the chance of an incomplete invoice. Qoyod is integrated with the National Invoicing System (JoFotara).

• Qoyod checks each invoice at field level as it is created, covering the tax number, the document type and payment method, the General Sales Tax rate and whether the lines are complete, and alerts you to any error before the invoice is sent, to reduce rejections.
• ISTD returns the invoice status and any error message, and Qoyod shows them in its status panel, with states that include sent (مرسلة), previously sent (مرسلة مسبقًا) and not sent (لم تُرسل) together with the error message.
• The status panel lists invoices that were not sent and need to be resent, and when you resend one it keeps the same UUID.
• Once ISTD accepts the invoice it returns a QR code, and Qoyod shows that code on the invoice.

One point of precision. The pre-send check is an alert, not a guarantee. It warns rather than blocks, it covers the fields listed above rather than the whole of ISTD’s rules, and it reduces rejections without guaranteeing acceptance.

Where to go next

This article answered one question, what the law attaches to not complying with the National Invoicing System. These neighboring topics complete the picture.

• Whether you are obliged at all. The obligated and exempt categories are in our article Who Must Use E-Invoicing in Jordan?
• Why your invoice is rejected. Rejection codes and their causes are in our article JoFotara Error Codes.
• Correcting an issued invoice. The official route and its limits are in our article Editing an Issued Invoice in Jordan’s National Invoicing System.
• The law behind the fines. The wider income tax picture is in our article Income Tax in Jordan.

Frequently asked questions

How much is the fine for not complying with JoFotara?

Regulation 34/2019 sets no amount, and Article 15 of Regulation 34/2019 refers to the law. Article 64 of Income Tax Law No. 34 of 2014 imposes an additional tax of no less than JOD 200 and no more than JOD 500, and the amounts are doubled on repetition.

What is the difference between Article 64 and Article 66 of the Income Tax Law?

Article 64 of the Income Tax Law is a failure fine, a sum between two limits that doubles on repetition. Article 66 of the Income Tax Law counts not issuing a proper invoice as an act of tax evasion, punished by a compensatory fine equal to the tax difference, with imprisonment in steps on repetition. The two routes differ in how the act is described and in how the amount is set.

Is the fine doubled on repetition?

It is. Paragraph (b) of Article 64 of the Income Tax Law provides that the amounts are doubled on repetition. The texts this article is built on do not set the period or scope within which a violation counts as a repetition, and ISTD is the reference on that point.

Does paying the fine cancel the tax due?

It does not. 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.

What happens to an invoice that was not issued through the system?

It is not accepted as a tax document. The buyer loses the deduction of the General Sales Tax paid on it, and the expense is not recognized for income tax purposes. The seller also faces exclusion from government tenders.

Is the fine counted for each invoice separately?

The texts this article is built on do not settle that, and they do not set the procedure for objecting to a fine decision. On both points, the reference is the text in force and the Income and Sales Tax Department.

References

• Regulation No. 34 of 2019 on Organizing and Controlling Invoicing Affairs, as amended, consolidated text (in Arabic), Articles 10 and 15.
• Income Tax Law No. 34 of 2014, as amended (in Arabic), Articles 63, 64, 66 and 69.
• ISTD’s unofficial English translation of Law No. 34 of 2014 as amended by Law No. 38 of 2018, Articles 63 and 66 (in case of conflict, the Arabic version prevails).