The road map of China's environmental tax system in the low carbon age

BEIJING, January 29 (Xinhua): Perspective of the "low carbon" era of China's environmental tax road map of the State administration of Taxation, deputy director of property behavior Tax Yang Suizhou 28th Online interview, said that the environmental tax system is currently under study, the specific scope of the tax, implementation time, management agencies have not yet determined. While the authorities have not responded to the timing of the introduction of environmental taxes, the discussions have been on the web and in newspapers.　　There are signs that, in the context of the global economy accelerating towards a "low-carbon" era, environmental tax, the international means of environmental policy in China is no longer a "flower in the mirror, water in the Moon", along with China's transformation of the speed of development, the introduction of environmental tax as the core of China's new round of environmental tax reform road map is emerging. The tax system "greening" is the general trend recently, the French environment Minister let-Louis Bolo formally to the cabinet meeting submitted a new carbon dioxide emission tax scheme.　　As a rule, this programme will be discussed by the parties from February this year, and the draft will be sent to Parliament for approval this spring.　　As an economic means of environmental protection, environmental tax has gone through more than thirty or forty years ' development in developed countries, especially since the mid 1990s, environmental problems have been paid more and more attention by the international community, developed countries increasingly implement environmental tax and enter a new stage of comprehensive "greening" tax system. For China, levying environmental tax is the development direction of perfecting environmental taxation. As the name suggests, environmental tax is to protect the environment for the purpose of pollution, the destruction of environmental behavior of a special or independent tax.　　In broad sense, environmental tax can also refer to the tax system, including environmental tax, and other tax regulations related to environmental protection in other taxes.　　Kang, director of the Finance Science Institute of the Ministry of Finance, said 29th in an interview that the development of low-carbon economy for China such a per capita resources, energy is very limited to the country is very necessary, and the transformation of economic development mode is also urgent need to improve environmental tax policy, thus the environmental tax "greening" is the "In the next few years our country's emission reduction task remains arduous."　　Kim Sanlin, deputy researcher of the Development Research Center of the State Council, points out that it is more necessary to solve some deep-seated problems in China's environmental protection by levying environmental tax measures. Many experts point out that levying environmental tax is an attempt to solve environmental problems by market mechanism in China. "China's environmental management has long been dominated by the command-control approach, but with the transformation of market economy and the development of many economic subjects, it is impossible to solve the problem of environmental pollution alone by legal and administrative intervention."　　"Kang said. The road map of environmental tax reform in recent years, developed countries have introduced green finance, tax policy, many countries also carried out a comprehensive green tax reform.　　Experts pointed out that green tax is the general trend, but also for China's environmental tax reform pointed out the direction. According to the current international tax on environmental taxes or related to the environment, China's current taxes on the environment-related taxes are mainly consumption tax, resource tax and travel tax, while in other taxes alsoTo formulate some tax policy provisions related to environmental protection, such as VAT, enterprise income tax, tariff, etc. Kang said that the current environmental tax system in China has yet to be perfected. Compared with the environmental tax system in developed countries, our current environmental tax policy lacks systematicness and restricts the environmental effect. Current environmental-related taxes, such as excise and resource taxes, are not designed specifically for environmental protection.　　At the same time, the existing tax provisions on the nature of environmental protection lack of overall design, not cohesion, it is difficult to present a combination of systems to control environmental problems. It is noteworthy that the current environmental tax has become the main environmental policy means in many developed countries.　　In contrast, our country lacks the specialized tax which aims at the pollution, the destruction environment behavior or the product class levy, namely the real environmental protection tax. Compared with foreign developed countries, China has not yet imposed environmental taxes directly related to environmental protection, such as sulfur, nitrogen and sewage taxes.　　Kang pointed out that because the main pollutant discharge is through the relevant sewage charges system to play a regulatory role, resulting in environmental taxes can not be in the domestic air pollution and water pollution and other major pollution control issues play a role. Zhang Bin, deputy director of the Institute of Finance and Finance of the Academy of Social Sciences, said that from the perspective of constructing perfect environmental tax system, the road map of China's environmental tax reform is becoming clearer, on the one hand, we should perfect the current environmental tax system, through various taxes related to environmental protection in existing tax system　　The provisions of the resource tax and the adjustment and reform of various tax preferential policies to enhance the greening degree of the existing taxes; On the other hand, an independent environmental tax should be levied. The study on the introduction of an environmental tax "already on the road" to levy a resource tax is now not a "written idea" in the road map of environmental tax reform.　　For some time, both the Ministry of Finance, the State administration of Taxation and the Ministry of Environmental Protection officials have said on different occasions, the introduction of environmental tax scheme is under study.　　The fact has also proved that environmental tax, as a new environmental management means, has aroused extensive concern from relevant government departments and experts and scholars. June 2007, the National Development and Reform Commission in conjunction with relevant departments formulated the "Comprehensive work plan for energy saving and emission reduction", explicitly proposed to "study the imposition of environmental taxes."　　Last year the State Council forwarded the NDRC's opinion on deepening the economic system reform in the 2009, and made it clear that we should expedite the rationalization of environmental tax system and study the levying of environmental taxes. "With the establishment and perfection of our socialist market economy, and the continuous development of China's compound tax system in the past 30 years, the trend of economic lever playing a more important role has been formed and irreversible, and the economy and taxation conditions of levying environmental tax in our country have been basically possessed."　　"Kang said. Levying environmental tax can make up the deficiency of environmental laws and regulations and tradable emission right in some extent, and can also make up for the shortage of environmental protection funds in developing countries.　　Zhang bin also suggested that in the course of the gradual transformation of economic structure, China should timing the environmental tax and play the role of environmental tax regulation. Environmental protection is a global problem, and the introduction of a new tax will inevitably lead to increased tax burden。 Zhang bin suggested that the current levy on environmental taxes is the main controversy and obstacles is to adopt what kind of tax model, which is a technical aspect of the problem.　　In the policy design, the decision-makers should set the overall goal of the existing tax policy and make clear the gap between the policy goal and the actual situation.　　Kang pointed out that the research, establishment and introduction of environmental tax should fully consider our national conditions, the low per capita income in the developed countries to levy environmental tax on the per capita GDP of about 8000 U.S. dollars, so the tax design will increase the burden of taxpayers. In addition, he stressed that the developed countries should take up the main environmental responsibility, and for developing countries like China, their primary task remains to develop the economy and eradicate poverty, so that they can only shoulder common but differentiated environmental responsibilities.