A Study On China's Resource Tax Reform And Its Impact

Resources shortages and environmental pollution are common questions that all countries have to face in the process of economic development. Since initiating the reforms and open policy, China has achieved tremendous success. But, there is no denying that China as a large developing country with a large population, the growth of economic rapidly makes resources shortages, environmental pollution and other problems are more severe and outstanding. The case of economic and energy demand are growing excessively, which not only related to our extensive pattern of economic growth, but also related to lacking perfect resource tax system closely. Resource tax is one of macroeconomic regulation and control means, which is playing an irreplaceable role in containing the waste of resources, controlling environmental pollution, promoting optimal allocation of resources and reasonable sustainable economic development. However, since 1994, China's existing resource tax system never had gone through radical reform. In terms of levying currently, resource tax failed to adjust the differential profit, to reflect the value of resources fully and truly, nor did not play an effective protection of natural resources and ecological environment role. It is to be said that current resource tax system has departed from our mature market economy system and disobeyed the objectives of sustainable development. Therefore, improving resource tax system has become an important task and objective in reforming our economic system. Meanwhile, studying the reform of resource tax and its influences on economic development has been an important research topic.This paper describes the theories of resource tax levied; reviews literatures both home and abroad; combines pure theoretical analysis with empirical analysis, according to the actual situation in China; concentrates on the current resource tax and which existed problems. In comparison with international experience, this paper proposes the objectives of resource tax system reform, and analyzes the impacts of resource tax reform.This paper is divided into six parts.This first part is the introduction which described the research background and significance of this paper. Firstly, the current resource tax system has not met our sustainable economic growth; resource tax reform is urgently needed. Secondly, reviewing the relevant literatures on domestic and international research on resource tax system. Lastly, the paper briefly describes the innovations and shortcomings.The second part is the theoretical basis of this article. By the beginning of analyzing the concepts of resource and resource tax, according to different classification methods, the resource tax is divided into general resources and differential resource tax; scarcity rent, differences in resource rents and monopoly rents; resources production tax, resources consumption tax and resources environmental tax. And this paper explores the resource tax levied on the basis of economic theories, including "theory of public goods ", " David Ricardo's rent theory", "Externality ----- Pigovian taxes "and "the Theory of Sustainable Development ". Finally, the paper draws the foreign resource tax system, such as Russia, the United States and Australia. Through a detailed description of the resource tax system of these three countries, I obtain some references on improvement of our resource tax system.The third part describes the evolution of our resource tax system and drawbacks of the existing tax system existed. China has a long history of tax resource system. From levying in 1848 to nowadays, resource tax system has gone through three stages:"free exploration ", "the first generation of resource tax system " and "the second generation of resource tax system ". Although our resource tax system is developing and improving, but there are significant flaws in our current resource tax system. For example, resource tax levied narrowly; resource tax assessment based unreasonably; resource tax rate setted unreasonably; resource tax allocation mechanism is unreasonable.The fourth part proposes the objectives and contents of our resource tax reform at this stage, which is also a priority. In the present context of economic reform, under the premise of sustainable development, our resource tax reform should meet some tax reform principles, as followings: the simple taxation system, broader tax basement, low rates and strict collection. At the micro level, resource tax reform should regulate the behavior of resource-based enterprises for curbing the waste of resources and environmental pollution. At the macro level, resource tax reform should speed up the adjustment of industrial structure, optimize resource allocation, and promote economic, social and natural environment development sustainably. Resource tax reform and improvement is not easy, but a gradual process, the specific direction of reform should be the following aspects: expanding the scope of resource tax collection; perfecting basis for resource tax levied; adjusting the resource tax rate; building multi-functional resources tax income distribution mechanism.The fifth part analyzes the impacts of resource tax reform, which is the end-result of the full text. Resource tax reform will inevitably have some impacts on China's economic development. This article analyzes the influences of resource tax reform on regional economic development, resource province, enterprises and consumers. Through in-depth and detailed analysis, drawn, first, the resource tax reform is to conduct the eastern, central and western regional economic coordinated development, to improve regional financial capacity and to narrow the gaps between regions. Second, resource tax reform has brought new opportunities to the Xinjiang Autonomous Region's (western region representative) social and economic development. Resource tax reform makes Shanxi Province (central region representative) regulation of industrial restructures quickly; promotes resource-based economy change; favors protection of ecological environment. Third, resource tax reform will increase operating costs of resource-based enterprises and non-resource-based enterprises, but because of the different market structure which industries lay, different products or services provided by the different elasticity of demand, the impacts on enterprises profits are also different. Fourth, in short terms, resource tax reform will heighten the price of resource products, so, when consumers spend some specific resource products, the welfare losses. In the long run, because of the ecological environment will be improved, consumer welfare will be enhanced. At the same time, these changes will enhance the environmental awareness of consumers; will also conduct the way of low-carbon consumption. Thus, consumer welfare is increased overall.The sixth part is the conclusion of this article, to summarize the main content and perspectives of this topic.