Circumventing the Zakat and Revenue Authority due to debts

Question:
He says: Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success. There is currently a Zakat and Revenue Authority, which is the body responsible for collecting zakat from commercial establishments and the like. I have a commercial establishment, but I have debts, and I do not have any wealth that reaches the nisab (minimum threshold for zakat) on which I would pay zakat, especially given the excess debts. Is it permissible for me to circumvent the Zakat and Revenue Authority and not give them what they ask of me as zakat, claiming that it is not zakat?

Answer:
When the one in authority asks for the zakat, it is paid to him. The Zakat and Revenue Authority is a representative of the one in authority. So if he asks you for the zakat, you pay it to him, and it is discharged from you, because it has been delivered into the hand of the one in authority, and the one in authority bears the responsibility. Your obligation is cleared by that. As for you saying, "I have debts," debts do not prevent the obligation of zakat on the wealth you possess. If you have trade goods or money in which zakat is obligatory, the existence of debt does not prevent its obligation on the wealth you have. You pay zakat on it even if you have debts. This is the correct position, because the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) used to send collectors to gather the zakat, and he did not tell them to ask people if they had debts.
Or if they did not have debts, he sent them to collect the zakat, and he did not order them to inquire in detail with people about whether they had debts or not. So the existing wealth on which a lunar year has passed, and which reaches the nisab, is subject to zakat, even if its owner has a debt. Yes.