The Impact Of Environmental Protection Tax On Enterprise Green Innovation

Since the reform and opening up,the Chinese economy has been developing rapidly,but the ecological environment has been damaged seriously by the extensive economic development mode.The environmental problems caused by some polluting enterprises in the process of production and operation have been widely concerned by the society from all walks of life.Based on the experience of pollution control abroad,we realize that promoting green innovation by polluting enterprises through policy means is the fundamental measure to solve the problem of environmental pollution and promote high-quality development.In order to solve a series of environmental problems,the Environmental Protection Tax Law of the People’s Republic of China emerged at the historic moment on January 1,2018,completing the smooth transition from pollutant discharge fee to environmental protection tax law.During its implementation,the environmental Protection Tax Law has played a positive role in China’s economic development and environmental protection.However,after the implementation of the environmental protection tax law,the specific impact on the green innovation of enterprises will be studied in detail in this paper.Based on theories such as double dividend theory,externality theory and Porter hypothesis,this paper,by combing domestic and foreign research literature and using innovation and financial data of A-share manufacturing listed companies in China’s Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets during 2015-2020,takes the implementation time of environmental protection tax on January 1,2018 as the policy impact point.A differential model is constructed to study the impact of environmental protection tax on green innovation.On this basis,this paper distinguishes green substantive innovation and green strategy innovation,analyzes the impact of environmental protection tax on different types of green innovation,and analyzes the heterogeneity of enterprise property rights and scale.Finally,the conclusion is drawn that environmental protection tax will indeed promote corporate green innovation,the promotion effect of substantive green innovation is not significant,but the promotion effect of strategic innovation is obvious.In addition,compared with private enterprises,the introduction of environmental protection tax is more significant to the green innovation of state-owned enterprises;Green innovation in large enterprises is more affected by environmental taxes than small enterprises.Therefore,in order to improve the environmental protection tax law and make it more effective,we put forward the policy recommendations: i.expand the scope of environmental protection tax levy;ii.increase the environmental protection tax rate and improve its taxation basis;iii.further improve the preferential policies of environmental protection tax;iv.improve the collection and administration mechanism of environmental protection tax and strengthen the cooperation among various departments.