Title 26 › Subtitle Subtitle D— Miscellaneous Excise Taxes › Chapter 38— ENVIRONMENTAL TAXES › Subchapter B— Tax on Certain Chemicals › § 4662
It explains which chemicals are taxed, who owes the tax, and many special cases when no tax applies. The law says a "taxable chemical" is any chemical on the list in section 4661(b) that is made in or brought into the United States. It defines "United States" by another rule, calls the person who brings a chemical in the "importer," and counts a ton as 2,000 pounds (for gases the ton is the amount equal to 2,000 pounds by molecular weight). If less than a ton is involved, the tax is the same fraction of the full-ton tax. The law lists many exceptions and rules. Methane and butane are taxed only if they are used for something other than fuel or to make motor, diesel, aviation, or jet fuel. Nitric acid, sulfuric acid, ammonia, and methane used to make ammonia are not taxed when used to make or sold for use as fertilizer (the first non-fertilizer user is treated as the manufacturer). Sulfuric acid made only as a byproduct on the same site as air pollution control equipment is not taxed. Chemicals made from coal are not taxed. Nine named chemicals (acetylene, benzene, butylene, butadiene, ethylene, naphthalene, propylene, toluene, xylene) are not taxed when used to make or used as motor, diesel, aviation, or jet fuel. Certain chemicals that appear only briefly during smelting or refining (like barium sulfide, various copper and zinc compounds, lead oxide, and solutions containing them) are not taxed unless they are removed from the process. Xylene normally does not include separated isomers except for imports or exports. Chromium, cobalt, and nickel recovered from solid waste as part of recycling are not taxed unless required cleanup at the recycling site is unfinished; groundwater cleanup is treated as complete after 10 years if it follows the permit. Organic taxable chemicals that are part of an intermediate hydrocarbon stream are not taxed until they are separated; the person who separates them is treated as the manufacturer. If a maker uses a taxable chemical instead of selling it, that maker must pay the tax as if it were sold. Inventory exchanges are not sales if both parties are registered and the receiver gives the registration details. Sales for export (or resale for export) are not taxed, and the law sets rules for credits or refunds when tax was paid but the chemical or a taxable product is exported. Two parts of another tax rule (section 7652(a)(3) and (b)(3)) do not apply to this tax.
Full Legal Text
Internal Revenue Code — Source: USLM XML via OLRC
Legislative History
Reference
Citation
26 U.S.C. § 4662
Title 26 — Internal Revenue Code
Last Updated
Apr 5, 2026
Release point: 119-73not60