Taiwan revises Air Pollution Control Fee Collection Regulations 
On March 24, 2022, the Environmental Protection Administration Executive Yuan of Taiwan issued a notice on revision of certain articles of the “Air Pollution Control Fee Collection Regulations”. Article 16 of the “Air Pollution Control Act”, which is a higher law of the above-mentioned Regulations, stipulates that “air pollution control fees” calculated according to a prescribed format shall be collected from the owners of stationary or mobile pollution sources. In addition, the notice “Collection fee rate of air pollution control fee of stationary pollution sources”, which was formulated in accordance with Article 17 of the “Air Pollution Control Act”, stipulates the unit price of “air pollution control fee” to be actually collected (e.g., If a certain plant is located in a class 2 control zone, and 1kg VOC is emitted in the second quarter, 25 NT$ will be collected in the second quarter). This time, some exemption conditions were revised. According to the revision, air pollution control fee will be exempted when the VOC emissions or other pollutant emissions are 10kg or less. In addition, a provision has been added that allows the “air pollution control fee” to be backdated up to five years.
Revision of the exemption conditions for “Air pollution control fee”
In this revision, collection of “Air pollution control fee” can be exempted under the following conditions;
- The emission quantity of individual air pollutant in the current quarter from stationary pollutant sources is less than the minimum emission level that is stipulated in the Annex of “Collection fee rate of air pollution control fee of stationary pollution sources”.
- The emission quantity of sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds or particulate pollutants is less than 10kg in the current quarter.
※According to the Environmental Protection Administration Executive Yuan, 2000 or more businesses will be newly eligible for the exemptions based on the revision.
Addition of provisions on continuous monitoring data falsification
In order to prevent the falsification of continuous monitoring data, a system has been established in which the Environmental Protection Administration Executive Yuan can inspect the original data of the company. After inspection, the air pollution control fee will be calculated again based the measurement results of the inspection.
Addition of provisions on the air pollution control fee backdated period
A provision has been added that air pollution control fees can be backdated for the quantity of air pollutants emitted within past 5 years from the previous quarter when documents were required to be submitted at the time of inspection by the Environmental Protection Administration Executive Yuan.
For the original text of the revised Regulations, please refer to the following URL (in Traditional Chinese).
https://oaout.epa.gov.tw/law/LawContent.aspx?id=FL015371
For the “Collection fee rate of air pollution control fee of stationary pollution sources”, please refer to the following URL (in Traditional Chinese).
https://oaout.epa.gov.tw/law/LawContent.aspx?id=FL015371
