Tax News No. 272 August 2019

Tax News No. 256 April 2018

The Draft of Chemical Substance Act

    On 26 April 2019, Food and
Drug Administration (FDA) held the meeting on
hearing (draft) of Chemical Substance Act B.E. …
No. 1/2562. At present, the process is on hearing
public opinions so as to amend the draft of this
Act and the revised draft of this Act shall be
finished within November 2019. In December 2019,
the draft of this Act will be proposed to the
national committee on strategic development of
management on chemical substances for approval.
Later, the draft of this Act will be proposed to
the Cabinet for passing a resolution and approving
the legal principles of the draft of this Act in
2020.
    The purpose of enactment the
draft of this Act is that the management on
chemical substances was supervised by several laws
and agencies previously, resulting in incompletion
and duplication of the management on chemical
substances as well as the discrepancy of law
enforcement. There shall be proper to amend and
turn the law on Hazardous Substance to be the law
on Chemical Substance. As a result, the management
and control of chemical substances will be unity
and in compliance with international approach.
Also, the supervision on chemical substances will
be complete as of importing, manufacturing,
exporting, passing through, bringing into, sending
back, possessing, transporting, selling, using,
treating, disposing, and recycling.

The essence of the draft of this Act as
proposed by FDA is as follows:   

1.      Hazardous Substance
   Act B.E. 2535, including all amendment of the
   Hazardous Substance Act will be repealed.
2.      Several committees
   and agencies are established for supervising
   chemical substances completely without any
   duplication of authority, i.e., the committee
   on national chemical substance policy, the
   committee on assessment of chemical
   substances, the committee on specific
   management of chemical substances, a national
   agency on chemical substances.
3.     Lists of substances are
   categorized into 3 lists, namely, List 1 – the
   chemical list which an enterprise shall comply
   with rules, procedures, periods and conditions
   as set forth, Lis 2 – the chemical list which
   an enterprise shall be granted, and List 3 –
   the chemical list which is prohibited from
   importing, manufacturing, exporting, passing
   through, possessing, selling, transporting,
   using, etc.
4.    The enterprise is obliged to
   implement the followings:

        1) Register
for the enterprise and chemical substances prior
to importing, manufacturing, exporting, passing
through, bringing into, or sending back the
chemical
          
substances
        2) Comply
with rules, procedures, conditions on importing,
manufacturing, exporting, passing through,
possessing, selling, transporting, using,
disposing the chemical    
        substances
as set forth in List 1
        3) Obtain a
license prior to importing, manufacturing,
exporting, passing through, bringing into, or
sending back the chemical substances as set forth
in List 2 for the    
        purposes of
agriculture, public health, industry, others. The
license shall be effective not exceeding 6 years
as of the issuance date
        4)
Importing, manufacturing, passing through,
possessing, transporting, selling, using, etc. of
the chemical substances as set forth in List 3 is
prohibited. Except for the    
        purpose of
research and development, or necessity for
protection of damage on public interest, the
enterprise is able to be granted to do so as
permitted by the    
       
    committee on specific
management of chemical substances

    5.    The
enterprise, who designs and manufacture
production, creates or develops technology or
innovation casing safety for use, transportation,
reduction or        
          
         replacement
of the use of hazardous substances, reduction or
management on waste of chemical containers or
packaging, use of the waste of chemical containers
or        
    packaging in a safety way,
shall be entitled to tax and non-tax privileges,
such as

        1) Tax or
special-fee incentives for the business that the
enterprise carries on
        2)
Permission on taking a foreign specialist to
function as a chemical assessment person. The
specialist will be entitled to personal income tax
exemption for performing    
        this job.
        3) Support
on loan with a special interest rate
        4)
Investment promotion