Changes in the regulation on environmental protection product fee?

PricewaterhouseCoopers Kft. informed its partners about changes in the regulation of the environmental protection product fee. Manager Balázs Szük told that were not many significant changes in the regulation as of 1 January 2011 – the most important one was establishing the NAV (National Tax and Customs Authority).

The Budapest customs directorate and the county customs directorates will perform the tasks connected to products on which environmental protection fees are levied. In the case of second instance procedures regional customs directorates-general are in charge (foreign taxpayers and priority taxpayers in the Central Hungary region have their own directorate). Product fee registration and declaration is still carried out electronically using the old account number, only the NAV name is new.

The new government considered ending the exemption from paying the fee, but finally opted for keeping the present system with cutting down on red tape – it is just about time as presently companies spend more on administrating environmental protection product fees than the actual contribution that they pay.

Balázs Szük predicted that sooner or later the government would change the current product fee system. One of the ideas raised was a single fixed fee, but at the moment the government’s opinion about this is not known. Mr Szük also spoke about other important issues: in the case of imported products, environmental protection fees have to be paid with taking the VAT route into consideration; if base material is imported, the fee has to be paid after the waste that entered the premises and not after the waste that was created there; in the case of reusable packaging, product fee must only be paid when it is first put into circulation, but it has to be registered by the authorities in advance.