Study On Resource Tax Reform Of Natural Gas Based On CGE Model

Development is the eternal theme of human society. Resources and theenvironment provide the sustainable development of economic and society withpower source and significant condition. Most of the energy resources arenon-renewable. With a huge consumption, they are being exhausted. The ecologicalenvironment therefore would be contaminated seriously with excessive exploitationand consumption. Natural gas resource, which is a type of relatively cleanconventional energy, is a good substitution of traditional fossil energy such as coaland oil to reduce pollution. However, the exploitation inevitably have an negativeinfluence on ecological environment, especially of the unconventional gas such asshale gas and coalbed methane. Their special characters make the exploitation face ahuge environmental damage risk. This paper aims to figure out how policies couldeffectively reduce damage to the environment as the economis develops and resourceexploits.Using the market-oriented economic instrument could obtain the best effect oncurbing the environmental problems caused by economic activities. Taxation policy,as a major method of fiscal policy, could turn the externality to internal productioncosts through taxing the procedure of resource exploitation, so that to adjust thedestroying production behavior to reduce pollution. China’s current environmentaltaxation system is not perfect. Resource tax revenue and resource productions’ marketvalue does not match. The result is that low tax rate could not compensate the scarceresource consumption and the environment damage. Environmental CGE model,which is an effective evaluation tool for resource taxation reform, is able toquantitatively analyze the impact of taxation on resources, the environment andeconomic systems and give the evaluation of policy implementation.In this paper, using natural gas as the research object, setting the controlling of the reasonable resources development as the goal, fully considering the presentsituation and problems of resource tax system in China, based on learning frominternational experience, using2010input-output extended table and relevant data inrecent ten years, we build and calculate a tax CGE model. By using the tax rate as avariable simulate influence of different tax rates for the economy and the environmentthe resource, we get the optimal resource tax rate for natural gas reform is13%. Inconsideration of the quantitative estimates and qualitative analysis together, we givethe policy recommendations on nature gas resources taxation reform. This paperagrees that, in basis of the reasonable control of exploitation and prevention ofresource development environmental risks, the producers should be levied resourcetax on sale valorem which could suppress resource consumption. The theoreticalresource tax rate which is not harmful to the industrial development and socialwelfare is13%. After applying it, natural gas energy input can reduce7.3%. Energysaving effect is obvious; The reform rate should be applied and adjusted step by stepbased on the actual economic situation. For different resources and different places,the tax also needs to be levied differently. Tax revenue should be used to subsidizeclean production, environmental and ecological restoration, investment inenvironmental technology and so on in order that we can make the resource taxcontribute to energy conservation and environmental protection.