The Legal System Of Environmental Taxes Is A Comparative Study

The essential nature of Environmental taxation is that it is a kind of economic instruments dealing with environmental issues.But as a specific form of the tax system,the tax laws must be the basis of environmental taxation.When we talk about the establishment of environmental tax system, first thing we should do is to understand the economic functions of the environment tax system.This is exactly showing us the complexity of the two new interdisciplinary sciences:the tax law and environmental law.And,our study can not be limited to traditional ways.In order to understand the environment tax law system better,we should do some economics and sociology study.This is the basic idea of the comparative studying on the environment tax.The full text is divided into five chapters.The study on the basic issues of environmental taxation is the first part as the starting point.Then,we will discuss three issues:the value of the environment taxation,development of the system and construct of the system.All the research is basis on the legal systems of industrialized countries.Finally,we will make a conclusion about the introduction of environmental taxation on the basis of what were discussed.Chapter 1:Basic Issues on Environmental Taxation.This is the basic theoretical part.In the chapter we discuss two issues:the basic theory of environmental issues and the basic principles of environmental taxation.In order to clarify the factors which will impact the environment tax system,and maintain the integrity logic of comparative study,this chapter first discusses the environment and ecological crisis,to show that the legal system of environmental tax which is in line with the market mechanism is an important way to protect of the environment.Second,the article discusses the relations between law and tax,analyzing the definitions of environmental taxation hold by both Chinese and other foreign scholars.And various tax levies which is designed or having the function to protect environment are included in the scope of environmental taxes,rather than just narrow the environment taxes as pollution taxes,in that way to establish an open platform for the future development of environmental taxation system.In the market mechanism,the solution of environmental issues relies on the process of "internalization" and the power of "market choice".This chapter provides the theoretical background for the comparative study below.Chapter 2:The Functions of Legal System of Environmental Taxation. The Environmental Taxation has unique value.Environmental tax is an important economic tool to promote a recycling economy and to achieve the sustainable development on the basis of national legislation.The implementation of Environmental tax is often accompanied by the implementation of micro-regulation and tax transfer.Environmental taxation can keep the state′s overall balance of revenue under the prerequisite of the realization of the tax relief,achieving the "double dividend".In addition,the environmental taxation play an irreplaceable role on mobilizes the enthusiasm of environmental protection and break the "green barriers".The second part of this chapter also focuses on the functional comparison between the environment tax system and other systems related to the environment protect. We can see that environmental tax system is more efficient than the means of control,in the aspect of achieving environmental policy.Environmental protection need to change the traditional control-oriented way.Compared with the emission trading system,the environment tax system can not be effectively control the total amount of pollutants.Thus the environmental protection should adopt a multiple way which is composed by a variety of systems and mechanisms.Chapter 3:The Longitudinal Comparative Legal System of Environmental Taxation -focus on the history.The article first analyzes the historical background of the development of the environmental taxation:In the impact of the serious ecological crisis,countries designed their own environment tax legal system to respond to the problem of greenhouse effect, air pollution,water pollution,garbage pollution.In addition international organizations also play a positive role.In the positive efforts of international organizations,a number of international environmental treaties are signed. After 20 years of development,the OECD members are stand at the forefront of the world.Almost all the OECD member countries have adopted a licensee, environmental taxation and other economic incentives to protect the environment.So,this paper focuses on the practice of OECD member countries,and selected the EU and the United States as a typical model.Then this part discussed three aspects:an environmental tax system development process,the main content,and the results.In addition to considering the nature of the cross-national of EU,the comparative study basis on both EU law level and domestic law level.In that way,find out the development engine of the legal system on environmental tax.Chapter 4:The Horizontal Comparison Legal System of Environmental Taxation -focus on the framework.This chapter focuses on the framework of the legal system of environmental taxation in the industrialized countries.On the basis of study on foreign environment tax system,the article focus on the energy-related tax system and the pollution tax system,choosing the United States BTU tax,the European energy tax directive as a major study case.By comparison we can conclude that environmental tax legal system still in the integration process.No country established a completely independent environment tax legal system.And most country adopted a holistic approach.Chapter 5:Comparison of Environmental Taxation and the Green Tax of China.This section is the conclusion of the study.This chapter first discusses the enlightenment of environmental tax comparative study to China, pointing out that China′s environmental protection work first should put the economic incentive mechanism at the core,and adopt a multi-system mechanism.In addition,in China,the introduction of environmental taxation has been put in the legislative agenda.So the second part of this chapter is try to apply the comparative conclusions,give some advice to the introduction of environmental taxation.To improve our legal system of environmental taxation,we should be facing the reality of China′s environmental problems as the starting point,and focus on the protection of water resources,energy and atmosphere.The similar of environmental issues decide that the transplantation of the legal system is available."Make foreign things serve China",can accelerate the construction of the socialist market economy,and promote the economic cycle to build a resource-saving and environment society.