Organisations paying environmental fees (i.e. those performing air emissions, wastewater discharges or waste disposal) may be granted more flexibility for the payment of such fees in advance, if the published draft regulation is adopted.
The current procedure for the calculation of quarterly advanced payments of environmental fees requires the payers to pay in advance ¼ of the environmental fee paid for the previous year. As a result, some organisations are likely to significantly overpay their environmental fees.
The Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology has proposed to provide payers of environmental fees with two additional options for paying such fees in advance (every quarter):
To pay ¼ of the fee calculated based on the emission, waste disposal or other limits set for the organization in question; and
To pay the fee for the actual environmental damage caused during the previous quarter and calculated on the basis of the results of self-monitoring performed by the organization in question.
If the procedure is adopted, the payers would be able to choose from one of the three mentioned options by specifying their choice in their environmental fee declaration.