Expanding the list of beneficiaries of the exceptional procedure for voluntary tax settlement

The Ministry of Finance has decided to expand the circle of beneficiaries of the exceptional procedure for voluntary tax settlement to also include natural and legal persons, pursuant to a new ministerial decree signed by the Minister of Finance, Abdelkrim Bouzered, concerning individual tax assessments issued against them during the year 2026, related to tax audit operations carried out during the year 2026 and before.

The latest issue of the Official Gazette included a decree dated 17 Dhu al-Hijjah 1447, corresponding to June 3, 2026, supplementing the decree dated 6 Ramadan 1447, corresponding to February 24, 2026, which determines the methods of applying the exceptional procedure for voluntary tax settlement.

The new decree stipulated the supplementation of the provisions of Article 2 of the decree dated February 24, 2026, by adding a new paragraph that also allows the natural and legal persons mentioned in Article 3 of the original decree to benefit from this exceptional procedure, under the heading of individual tax assessments issued against them during the year 2026, related to tax audit operations carried out during the year 2026 and before.

By virtue of this amendment, benefiting from the exceptional procedure for voluntary tax settlement now also extends to this category of taxpayers when their situations are linked to tax audit operations completed during the year 2026 or before, which resulted in individual tax assessments issued during the year 2026, in accordance with the terms and conditions specified in the original decree.

In a second decree dated in the latest issue of the Official Gazette, the Minister of Finance amended the decree dated February 24, 2026, which determines the methods for canceling tax debts recorded during the year 2011 and before, and the clearing of debts recorded during the years from 2012 until 2025. The new decree mandates the cancellation of the provisions of Article 8 of the aforementioned decree, without the published text containing any other alternative provisions, provided that the decree is published in the Official Gazette of the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria.

This amendment comes within the framework of reviewing the regulatory provisions related to the methods of canceling old tax debts and clearing debts recorded during the period extending from 2012 until 2025, regarding the decree dated February 24, 2026.

This amendment also practically means expanding the scope of cases that can be covered by the exceptional procedure for voluntary tax settlement, by including natural and legal persons concerned with individual tax assessments issued during the year 2026, whenever they are related to tax audit operations carried out during the year 2026 and before, which allows this category to benefit from the procedure within the framework of the conditions specified in the decree organizing the voluntary tax settlement.

The Ministry of Finance had previously ordered the tax authorities to initiate an extensive operation to drop old uncollectible tax debts, setting a maximum deadline of six months to finalize this operation definitively, in order to clean the public accounts of debts recorded until the year 2011 and before, and to rearrange the state tax register according to an approach based on the accounting liquidation of old debts and the modernization of the collection system.