Further work on the chemicals tax

In recent months, a number of activities have been carried out in response to the work of IT&Telecom companies on the chemicals tax.

Report on the chemicals tax

At a seminar in September, IT&Telecomföretagen presented a report on the chemicals tax. Work on producing the report began in October last year and was done in collaboration with the European trade association Pinfa. Over the course of the year, a large number of organizations, experts, authorities and companies have been involved in the work.

The report's conclusions are both startling and distressing. The Swedish chemicals tax, which was implemented with the aim of reducing the proportion of unwanted chemicals in people's home environment, is not fulfilling its purpose. Due to the inadequate design of the tax, there are currently good incentives for rogue operators to choose undesirable chemicals in order to obtain the maximum tax reduction. In other words, the tax has created conditions for false substitution.

Instead of taxing the hazardous properties of chemicals, chemicals are taxed based on their chemical-technical properties. The legislation focuses heavily on whether the chemicals are additively or reactively produced. This is strange because it has nothing to do with the intrinsic health properties of the chemicals or how dangerous they are. Neither the REACH Regulation nor the RoHS Directive - the European legislation in this area - attaches much importance to whether substances are additive or reactive. Nor do independent eco-labels such as the Nordic Swan and TCO Certified support the principles of taxation.

Evaluation by the Chemicals Inspectorate

In October, the Swedish Chemicals Agency invited business representatives from several different sectors to a meeting to begin its work on evaluating the chemicals tax. IT&Telekomföretagen will be a constructive party in the continued work and will assist the authority as much as possible. The industry has already sent over a list of experts who will be able to help in the continued work. According to the Swedish Chemicals Agency, the evaluation will be presented during the first half of 2020. It is the hope of IT&Telecom that the report will be very clear and that it will be able to form the basis for further legislative work on the chemicals tax.