| Over the past 40 years of reform and opening up,China’s economic construction has made rapid development,which is obvious to all in the world.According to the latest data released by the National Bureau of statistics,China’s GDP in 2018 was 89691.56 billion yuan,ranking the second in the world,with a year-on-year growth of 6.6%.But with the continuous growth of extensive economy in China,environmental and ecological problems are increasingly prominent.China is faced with many environmental problems,such as tight resource constraints,serious environmental pollution and ecosystem degradation,which also become the "bottleneck" of China’s economic development.Environmental problems can not be solved without economic,legal,administrative and other means of adjustment,including the adoption of administrative penalties,financial subsidies,taxes and tradable permits and other policy tools.Among them,tax is an integral part of the overall macroeconomic policy of the country and an important tool of government regulation,while green tax is an important component of the tax system.Green tax is a concept that emerged at the end of the 20 th century in the international tax field.From the content of green tax,it includes not only various taxes specifically levied for environmental protection,but also various tax measures taken for environmental protection.Among the current 18 taxes in China,except the environmental protection tax,which is a new green tax in 2018,other taxes have been levied for many years,and the purpose of setting these taxes is more based on the consideration of economic factors.With more and more environmental pollution problems and over exploitation and abuse of resources,green tax system has become the trend of financial and tax system reform in China.The greening of tax system is based on the requirements of green development,green adjustment of the existing tax system,so that it can reflect the overall function of environmental protection.Through the reform of the green tax system,we can guide and restrict the members of the society to deal with the problems of resources and environment correctly.Therefore,China needs to build a sound green tax system,internalize the environmental pollution problem by means of taxation,promote the transformation of energy production and consumption mode,promote theprotection and construction of ecological environment,so as to solve the problem of environmental pollution control,which is also a long-term strategic task in the process of economic development in China.The implementation effect of green tax is not only closely related to the rational design of its own system and the effective implementation of collection and management,but also inseparable from the coordination and cooperation of other environmental related taxes.Therefore,this paper reasonably defines the concept and connotation of green tax and green tax system.The green tax system is defined as the general designation of all kinds of taxes collected and all kinds of tax preferential policies formulated in the process of the comprehensive "greening" transformation of the traditional tax system in order to achieve the purpose of pollution prevention and control,which is composed of several green taxes and tax preferential policies with different natures.As far as China is concerned,it specifically includes three parts: first,the green tax set up for environmental protection,such as environmental protection tax,belongs to the post intervention type;second,other green related taxes with environmental protection nature in the current tax system,which are divided into resource occupation type and behavior guidance type;third,the preferential tax policies related to environmental protection.Through a comprehensive review of the current green tax system in China,the proportion of different types of green tax is compared.In the green tax structure of China from 2009 to 2018,the proportion of behavior guided green tax is the highest,accounting for more than 70%;the second is resource occupation green tax,accounting for 20%-30%;the proportion of environmental protection tax is generally less than 3%,especially in 2018,the lowest proportion is only 0.73%.It can be seen that the existing green tax system in China mainly focuses on the collection of consumption tax,vehicle purchase tax and vehicle and ship tax,which are the behavior oriented green tax.The greening degree of the tax system reflects the degree of environmental improvement and resource conservation of the green tax system.In this paper,the greening degree of China’s tax system is preliminarily measured.The common method of OECD countries is adopted in the selection of indicators,that is,the proportion of green tax revenue to total tax revenue.The results show that the greening degree of tax system in China is between 13.15%and 15.53% in 2009-2018,and it shows a downward trend after 2015.Although the green tax connotation and structure of our country and OECD countries are different,which leads to great differences in the greening degree of tax system,but in contrast,the greening degree ofour tax system is still not low.There are also great differences in the greening degree of tax revenue in different regions of China,among which the greening degree of tax revenue in the eastern region is relatively low.In order to further study the possible impact of green tax on China’s environment and economy,this paper selects data from 30 provinces and cities in 2005-2017 for threshold regression analysis.First of all,taking the green tax revenue and the proportion of secondary production as the threshold variables,four formulas are assumed to analyze the environmental protection effect of green tax in China,i.e.pollution reduction and energy saving.The results show that in terms of pollution reduction effect,every 1% increase in green tax revenue will reduce sulfur dioxide emissions by 0.05% to 0.06% nationwide,with little regional difference.However,green tax is not the main influencing factor of waste water discharge,and the inhibition of waste water discharge is not obvious.In the aspect of energy-saving and consumption reducing effect,green tax has no significant effect on energy consumption because of the positive correlation between green tax revenue and energy consumption.Secondly,taking green tax revenue,energy consumption and the proportion of secondary production as threshold variables,three formulas are assumed to analyze the impact of green tax on the economic benefits represented by per capita GDP,that is,the economic effect of green tax.The results show that for regions with green tax revenue higher than the threshold value of 56.955 billion yuan,such as Liaoning,Shanghai,Jiangsu,Zhejiang and other regions,increasing green tax revenue will increase economic benefits by 67.03%.However,for regions with green tax revenue less than or equal to the threshold value of 56.955 billion yuan,such as Beijing,Tianjin,Hebei,Shanxi and other regions,increasing green tax revenue will significantly reduce economic benefits.At the same time,when the threshold variables are energy consumption and the proportion of secondary production,every 1% increase in green tax revenue will increase the economic benefits between 28.91% and 128.06%.Therefore,there is a certain threshold condition for the double dividend effect of green tax in China,that is,for regions with green tax revenue greater than the threshold,such as Liaoning,Shanghai,Jiangsu,Zhejiang and other regions,the double dividend effect exists.However,for regions with green tax revenue less than the threshold,such as Beijing,Tianjin,Hebei,Shanxi and other regions,the double dividend effect does not exist.Finally,the paper points out the existing problems of China’s current green tax system,and puts forward countermeasures and suggestions for the improvement of China’s green tax system based on the experience of OECD countries’ green tax system reform.The reform ofgreen tax system needs to carry out overall planning and cooperation for environmental protection tax and other green related taxes according to different functional positioning and scope of action,so as to avoid conflicts and contradictions between different green tax means,so as to build a sound green tax system. |
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