Research On Environmental Tax Legal Issues

Nowadays, as the fast development in science-technology and economics, human activities have changed the environment system greatly, and caused a series of environmental problems. Countries in the world are looking for good ways to solve these problems. Currently, they are inclined to use economic instruments to solve environmental problems, and have the introduction of environmental tax. In fact, it is proved that environmental tax has played a very important role in ecological balance and environmental protection. China doesn't have the legal system of environmental tax, tax system about environmental protection are scattered in other tax laws. Therefore, it is urgent to build a perfect legal system of environmental taxation.This thesis takes taxability theory as the starting point, discussing and analyzing the environmental tax from both economic and legal point of views. It proposes four steps passed by our country environment legal regime construction to provide the theory based on our country environment tax legal system's establishment and improvement, by comparing the existing environmental tax and fee's system.The whole thesis is divided into three parts: the first part is the basic knowledge about taxability theory and environmental tax. First, it introduced the taxability theory. Taxability theory was first mentioned by Professor Zhang Shouwen in the article "On tax law of'taxability'". As an important component of tax theory, the focus of this research is about how to define the scope of taxation legislation effectively, in order to ensure that the national taxation is feasibility and legitimacy. Its main point is to make a choice about whether to levy tax. There are two aspects about taxability theory: possibility and feasibility in economic; rationality and legitimacy in law. Secondly, it defined and summarized the meaning and characteristics of environmental tax. Environmental tax means to impose on all the environmental resources which developed and used by units and individual. It is not a single kind of tax, but a tax class in parallel with property taxes, income tax, and turnover tax. Environmental tax not only has the general legal characteristics of a tax (mandatory, free sex, fixed and universal, etc.), but also has its own characteristics, such as scientific technical, cross-cutting, special purpose of protecting environment.The second part is academic analysis on environmental taxability. It analyzed and demonstrated environmental taxability in economics and law. From the view of economics, it described two important theories firstly, which is externality theory and public goods theory. Externality is the phenomenon that private cost and social cost are not consistent. It is the root cause of environmental problems, in order to eliminate the adverse externality effects; we must take measures to turn the externality into internalization. How to do that? An effective way is to impose the environmental tax. Public goods are those for the whole or part of the residents to consumption or use, but residents do not need to pay for it in accordance with the market approach. Environmental resources with public goods properties, would lead to the phenomenon of "free ride" and the "tragedy of the commons" occurring, imposing environmental taxes is an effective way to avoid these phenomena. It not only helps to prevent free riding which is the main cause of social degradation of the environment, but also helps stimulate the community to take measures to protect the environment. Secondly, discussed the advantages of environmental taxes by comparing with environmental taxes and other means (direct government control, sewage charges, emission trading and financial subsidies).From the view of law, it demonstrated the feasibility and rationality in law from four aspects, which are environmental rights; tax principle of legality; tax principle of fairness; and tax efficiency principle. Firstly, analyze environmental taxability from the view of environmental rights theory. Environmental right means that people have right to live in the beautiful, an ideal environment. Currently, the Constitution does not make clear that people have environmental right. Therefore, before adding environmental right into the Constitution, we must find other legal means to protect the environment, environmental tax is a good choice. It not only can help to development the environmental right theory, but also can conducive to the realization of environmental rights and obligations. Secondly, analyze environmental taxability from tax principle of legality. Tax principle of legality is the most important basic principles of tax law. It is the principles of democracy and legality embodied in the tax law, and playing a vital role in protecting human rights, safeguarding national interests and social welfare. The taxability theory is based on tax principle of legality, and it also supplemented and completed tax principle of legality. Again, analyze environmental taxability from the view of tax fairness principle. Tax fairness principle demands the distribution of tax burden rely on the taxpayer's economic situation, and also requires the tax system should help optimize the distribution of national income to social wealth among the members in a fair society distribution. It includes the equity on tax burden; economic justice; and tax revenue. Environmental tax can optimize the allocation of resources, and create a fair competition field for the market players. At the same time, it also can achieve social equity. Finally, analyze environmental taxability from the view of tax efficiency principle. Tax efficiency principle includes the principles of economic efficiency and the efficiency of tax administration. Environmental tax system with the scientific and rational design, not only can achieve economic efficiency, but also can achieve administrative efficiency.The third part is the proposals to improve environmental tax. Environmental tax law is a complex system. We can learn from developed countries, and establish it step by step. In this thesis, there is a four-step suggestion for the construction of tax system according to the development of our national conditions and tax system. The first step is to improve preferential tax system, which including expanding the scope of tax incentives; classifying the existing environmental tax incentives; cancelling the duplicated regulations; adopting the model of uniform legislation and hierarchical management to make the tax incentives more flexible and targeted. The second step is to adjust the relationship between environmental fees and environmental tax, which including collecting and regulating the existing environmental fees; cancelling the illegal fees; considering to turn environmental fee into tax; and introducing new environmental tax. The third step is to make the existing tax system more "green". It not only can prepare for the introduction of environmental tax, but also can protect and improve the environment. The fourth step is to introduce the independent environmental tax. Independent environmental tax is a new tax, which is under the framework of the existing system, and parallel to resource tax, VAT and other taxes. Its main aim is to protect ecological environment, and its primary function is to protect the environment. Independent environmental tax is designed from three aspects, which are the general environmental tax, the direct pollution tax and pollution tax on products. The aim is to make it not only have economic rationality and efficiency, but also have legal equality and fairness and can met the needs of China's national conditions and social development.