Federal Act
on the Protection of the Environment
(Environmental Protection Act, EPA)

¹ Any per­son who im­ports volat­ile or­gan­ic com­pounds or any per­son who, as a man­u­fac­turer, puts such com­pounds in­to cir­cu­la­tion or uses them him­self must pay an in­cent­ive tax to the Con­fed­er­a­tion.

² The im­port of such com­pounds in paints and var­nishes is also sub­ject to the tax. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may make the im­port of such com­pounds in oth­er mix­tures or art­icles sub­ject to the tax if the quant­it­ies of these com­pounds are such as to pol­lute the en­vir­on­ment to a con­sid­er­able ex­tent or if these com­pounds ac­count for a sig­ni­fic­ant pro­por­tion of the cost of the product.

³ Volat­ile or­gan­ic com­pounds are ex­empt from the tax if:

a.

they are used as mo­tor or thermal fuels;

b.

they are in trans­it or be­ing ex­por­ted;

c.

they are used or treated in such a way that they are not re­leased in­to the en­vir­on­ment.

⁴ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may grant tax re­lief to the ex­tent of the ad­di­tion­al costs in­curred for volat­ile or­gan­ic com­pounds which are so used or treated that their emis­sions are re­duced to sub­stan­tially be­low the leg­al re­quire­ments.

⁵ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may ex­empt volat­ile or­gan­ic com­pounds that are not en­vir­on­ment­ally haz­ard­ous from the tax.

⁶ The tax rate amounts to a max­im­um of five francs per kilo­gram of volat­ile or­gan­ic com­pounds, plus a sur­charge to take ac­count of in­fla­tion from the date on which this pro­vi­sion comes in­to force.

⁷ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil sets the rate of the tax with ref­er­ence to air qual­ity ob­ject­ives, tak­ing spe­cial ac­count of:

a.

the pol­lu­tion that volat­ile or­gan­ic com­pounds cause to the en­vir­on­ment;

b.

the danger these com­pounds rep­res­ent to the en­vir­on­ment;

c.

the cost of meas­ures that can lim­it the ef­fects of these com­pounds;

d.

the price of these sub­stances and the price of al­tern­at­ive sub­stances which are less harm­ful to the en­vir­on­ment.

⁸ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall in­tro­duce the tax in stages and set the timetable and the rate for each stage in ad­vance.

⁹ The rev­en­ue from the tax, in­clud­ing in­terest and un­der de­duc­tion of im­ple­ment­a­tion costs, is shared equally among the pop­u­la­tion. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil reg­u­lates the dis­tri­bu­tion pro­ced­ure. It may in­struct the can­tons, pub­lic cor­por­a­tions or private in­di­vidu­als to make the dis­tri­bu­tion.