A Study Of Tax Rate Design Of Sulfur Dioxide Tax In China

Since humans appear in the world, the relationship between human and nature is complicated. From the beginning, human is fear to the nature, and then want to conquer the nature. Now human beings look for the way to live harmony with the nature. During the time, many people try to seek the equilibrium relationship between development and environmental protection. The economists also want to find economic means to to solve this problem. As an important economic mean, tax is thought in high hope in managing environmental pollution. The tax to protect the environment is called environmental tax, such as carbon tax,sulfur dioxide pollution tax。In the design of environmental tax to various pollutants, we should consider the common features of environmental taxes and also should pay attention to the difference in various pollutions. As we know, tax rate is very important tax factor. This paper takes sulfur dioxide pollution as an example, design sulfur dioxide pollution tax rate.Due to the complexity of the reality, we cannot get the optimal tax rate of theory. We have to adapt some subprime means to calculate suitable tax rate in reality. We can calculate environmental tax rate based on environmental degradation cost,virtual treatment cost and pollution control cost. The way based on environmental degradation cost is according to environmental pollution caused by all kinds of damages and the current environmental pollution emissions to calculate loss each unit of environmental pollutants caused as the rate of sulfur dioxide pollution tax. The way based on virtual treatment cost should calculate the amount of the funds to restore the environment polluted by sulfur dioxide. And then find emission quality. Then calculate the cost per unit of sulfur dioxide pollution control. The way based on emission processing cost is according to the financing volume and emission quality. Then calculate the cost per unit of sulfur dioxide pollution emission processing, which is sulfur dioxide tax rate. In practice, these three methods have its own advantages and disadvantages: We can achieve the best effect of environmental tax under the way based on environmental degradation cost. However, environmental degradation cost is very hard to get under the way. We can get enough funds needed for environment treatment; however the virtual treatment cost is also very hard to get under the way based on virtual treatment cost. The emission processing cost is easy to get, but the tax level is low which can only force the enterprise to install pollution treatment equipment which is lowest target of environmental tax. Generally, the tax rate based on emission processing cost is the lowest, and the tax rate based on environmental degradation cost is highest. We suggest using the rate based on emission processing cost mainly and take the tax rate based on environmental degradation cost as a secondary means. The reason is as followed. First, China has not levy taxes on environment, and the standard of sulfur dioxide emission charge is low which even can not meet the cost of enterprise's blowdown control. Second, China has not a plan to take green taxation reform comprehensively. This paper will take the way based on emission processing cost and the way based on environmental degradation cost to design the rate of sulfur dioxide tax in China. Further explain the applicable scope and the implementation steps of different rates.Facing the increasingly serious environmental problems,governments have been searching for effectively tools to control the environment, In the 1970s,many countries carry out environmental tax. The Chinese Government has also been brewing environment tax introduced , adopted by the State Council"opinion of 2010 deepening economic reforms in key areas of work " asking to study environmental tax scheme again. Environmental tax rates are undoubtedly one of the most difficult problems. To a certain extent, the uncertain of tax is the reason why the environmental tax has not been carried out. Taking sulfur dioxide pollution as an example, this paper designs the appropriate tax rate level of sulfur dioxide in China by referring to pollution control cost and environmental loss cost, which provides referential suggestions for collecting sulfur dioxide tax and calculating tax rates for other environmental taxes.