Study On Industrial Pollution Reduction Effects Of Environmental Protection Tax In China

The Environmental Protection Law is my country’s first separate tax law embodying the green tax system.Its main purpose is to “protect and improve the environment,reduce pollutant emissions,and promote the construction of ecological civilization.” The environmental protection tax has been levied in my country for more than three years,and the smooth transition from pollution discharge fees has basically been realized.However,the effect of the current environmental protection tax on my country’s environmental pollution control is worthy of further exploration.This paper first points out that the research object is the environmental protection tax in the narrow sense,and analyzes the relationship between the environmental protection tax and the "predecessor" pollutant discharge fee.It is concluded that the two have the same elements,the same purpose of collection,and some differences,such as different standardization of collection and management procedures,different collection and management modes,and different tax preferences.Then the theoretical basis of environmental protection tax is elaborated,including externality theory,public goods theory,double dividend theory and environmental Kuznets curve theory.After that,according to the current provincial environmental protection tax rate standard,China is divided into three regions with different tax intensity: high,medium and low.The emission status of industrial waste gas and industrial waste water in China is embodied in data from the national and regional aspects,and the emission status of major industrial pollutants in China is expounded.At the same time,it describes the income of pollutant discharge fee from 2004 to 2017 and the income of environmental protection tax from 2018 to 2020 in China,and explains the situation of industrial emission reduction and environmental protection tax(fee)collection in China from the realistic level.Since some industrial pollutant emission data are not available,the empirical part of this paper only selected the provincial panel data of 31 provinces(autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government)from 2006 to 2015.The estimated tax revenue obtained according to the current environmental protection tax collection standard was taken as the explanatory variable,and the industrial pollutant emission was taken as the explanatory variable.Taking per capita GDP,the proportion of the output value of the secondary industry and the investment in environmental pollution treatment per unit GDP as the control variables,the industrial pollutant model was constructed,and the effect of environmental protection tax on industrial pollution reduction was analyzed empirically.Then,on behalf of the United States,Japan,Germany and Denmark,this paper introduces the environmental tax system of developed countries and summarizes the experience for our country to learn.Finally,suggestions are put forward from optimizing tax system design and strengthening tax collection and management,including expanding the scope of environmental protection tax collection,bringing non-taxable pollution factors into the tax items of environmental protection tax,and appropriately moving the ranking of taxable pollution equivalent number back.Respect regional heterogeneity and adopt floating differential tax rates.We will improve the preferential tax policies for environmental protection tax,refine the level of tax exemptions and exemptions,and increase the number of different types of tax reductions.We will improve the quality and efficiency of tax collection and management by improving the mechanism for coordinating tax collection and management between tax authorities and environmental protection departments.