Cai Bo, School of Economics

Abstract: The ecological environment situation that humanity is facing is increasingly facing severe challenges. Improving the quality of the ecological environment and protecting resources has become a common focus of attention for government decision-makers, sociologists, economists, and the general public. Over the past 30 years of reform and opening up, China's economic growth has maintained a high level of growth. However, this growth is mainly achieved through a large amount of investment in resources and environmental factors, which is an extensive type of growth rather than a beneficial type of development. This has caused serious insufficient compensation for the value of ecological resources, further leading to exceptionally prominent environmental problems. How to use various effective means, especially tax methods, to protect the ecological environment, avoid following the old path of "pollution before treatment" in developed Western countries, promote sustainable and coordinated socio-economic development, and build an ecological civilization with harmony as its connotation, is an important issue we face in building a socialist market economy. As a public resource and product, we cannot define the property rights of the environment. However, on the other hand, the "external uneconomics" generated by environmental pollution can have an impact on us or our future generations.

Environmental pollution is a typical "market failure", mainly manifested in the external effects of "free riding" economic behavior and market defects caused by imperfect markets and high market costs. Using the theories of ecological environment value, externality, public goods, and sustainable development, this article elaborates on the ecological civilization construction in China, with the goal of levying environmental protection taxes and building a resource-saving and environmentally friendly society. How to achieve a relative balance between the environment and economic development in the game has profound practical and historical significance.

This article is divided into five parts, and the overall idea of the article is to propose problems analyze problems solve problems. The main content of the introduction is to analyze the background and significance of the topic, and on the basis of summarizing the current development status of environmental protection taxes at home and abroad, propose the research ideas, structure, methods, innovations, and shortcomings of the paper. Chapter 1: The current situation and deficiencies of China's environmental protection tax and fee system. This chapter introduces the construction of China's system from the perspectives of environmental protection fees and environmental protection taxes, analyzes the institutional deficiencies of China's environmental protection tax and fee policies, and discusses the form selection of environmental protection tax and fee in China. Chapter 2: Theoretical basis, significance, and conditions for levying environmental protection tax in China. This chapter elaborates on the theoretical basis for levying environmental protection tax and analyzes the conditions for levying environmental protection tax. Chapter Three: The Experience and Reference of Environmental Protection Tax in Major Foreign Countries, Studying the Advanced Experience of Environmental Protection Tax in Major Foreign Countries, Analyzing the Three Stages of Development of Environmental Protection Tax in Foreign Countries, and Summarizing the Advanced Practices of Representative Countries.

Chapter Four: The System Design of Environmental Protection Tax in China, which discusses the overall idea (guiding ideology) of tax system design, the design scheme of tax system elements, and the supporting measures for levying environmental protection tax in China. The research method of this article is to use a combination of empirical analysis and normative analysis to demonstrate the necessity and urgency of levying environmental protection tax in China through empirical analysis; Through normative analysis, clarify the design ideas and elements of environmental protection tax, as well as the basic principles that should be followed and the countermeasures that should be taken. The second approach is to use a combination of abstract and concrete analysis to elucidate the theoretical and practical significance of levying environmental protection tax. Through concrete analysis, combined with China's specific national conditions, the main limiting factors in the design of the environmental protection tax system are identified, and practical policy recommendations are proposed based on current technological and management methods.

In terms of the institutional design of environmental protection tax, this article proposes policy suggestions such as "fee to tax" design of the current fee system, restructuring the resource tax as an important component of environmental protection tax, and adjusting and refining the specific tax items of this tax category under the principle of "maintaining macro tax burden and avoiding duplicate taxation"; At the same time, under the principles of classified collection, classified design, and phased planning, different collection methods such as price based collection, quantity based collection, and compound collection are adopted for different collection objects and tax items. Due to limited theoretical knowledge and incomplete knowledge structure, as well as shallow understanding of economic models and public management theory, there are biases in discussing environmental protection tax issues and tax system design.

Read the full article here:              我国开征环境保护税问题研究_蔡博.pdf