Cases of environmental tax collection

EU exhaust gas and air pollution tax

The common taxes on exhaust gas are sulfur dioxide tax on sulfur dioxide emission and carbon tax on carbon dioxide emission. Take the sulfur dioxide tax as an example. The United States has imposed a sulfur dioxide tax since the 197s. According to the provisions of the Sulfur Dioxide Tax Law, in areas where the concentration of sulfur dioxide reaches the first-class standard, the tax will be 15 cents for every pound of sulfur discharged; The area that meets the second-class standard is taxed at 1 cents per pound of sulfur; Areas above the second level are exempted. Germany, Japan, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden, France and other countries have also levied sulfur dioxide taxes.

wastewater and water pollution tax. Wastewater includes industrial wastewater, agricultural wastewater and domestic wastewater. Many countries levy a water pollution tax on wastewater discharge. For example, Germany introduced this tax in 1981, and implemented a unified national tax rate based on the "polluting unit" of wastewater (equivalent to the pollution load of a resident for one year).

Another example is that the water pollution discharge fee levied by the Netherlands according to the "population equivalent" (equivalent to the amount of pollutants discharged into the waters by each person every year) is also a water pollution tax. Fixed waste tax. Fixed waste can be divided into industrial waste, commercial waste, agricultural waste and domestic waste according to its source. Fixed waste taxes levied by various countries include disposable tableware tax, beverage container tax, used tire tax, lubricating oil tax and so on.

Italy

In 1984, Italy imposed a waste and garbage disposal tax, which was levied on everyone as a source of funds for local governments to dispose of waste and garbage. Noise pollution and noise tax. Noise pollution refers to a phenomenon that the discharged volume exceeds the bearing capacity of people and animals, thus hindering the normal life of people or animals. There are two kinds of noise taxes: one is fixed. For example, in the United States, a noise control tax of $1 is levied on every passenger and every ton of cargo using airports such as Los Angeles, and the tax is used to pay for the isolation of residential areas around the airport; Second, the emission units are levied according to the noise emission. For example, the airport noise tax in Japan and the Netherlands is levied on airlines according to the number of aircraft landings.

It mainly includes deforestation tax, which was levied in France in 1969, stipulating that deforestation for the purpose of urban planning or industrial construction should pay a tax of 6, francs per hectare; In other cases, the tax is 3 francs per hectare. Belgium's "Ecological Tax Law" passed in 1993 stipulates a series of ecological taxes, which are applicable to beverage packaging, disposable razors and cameras, pesticides, paper and batteries.

Typical environmental taxes in developed countries mainly include air pollution tax, water pollution tax, noise tax, solid waste tax and garbage tax.

Canada

Canada levies a fee and collects a deposit for disposable solid beverage containers. When selling drinks, collect environmental protection fees from consumers and charge a certain deposit. The tax amount of each bottle varies from .5 to .3 Canadian dollars. When the empty bottle is returned, the deposit will be refunded, and the environmental protection fee will be retained for the disposal of disposable beverage containers. This measure reduces the phenomenon of littering beverage packaging, protects nature and energy, and reduces the use of containers and the generation of waste to some extent. Because the use of air conditioning will pollute the environment, and it takes money to remove this pollution.

Therefore, when purchasing air conditioners, the purchaser must pay some extra environmental taxes, and the price of each air conditioner has already included environmental taxes. It is reasonable that whoever caused the pollution should pay for it. In Canada's federal tax law, some provisions encourage taxpayers to invest in projects and equipment for environmental protection. Income can be appropriately deducted from the cost of such projects, and accelerated depreciation method is adopted for equipment that saves energy and reduces air pollution and water pollution to reduce corporate tax.

Ireland

In order to curb the crazy use of plastic shopping bags and reduce white pollution, the Irish government levied a tax equivalent to 13 cents on each plastic shopping bag. All the funds collected are handed over to the newly established environmental protection fund for environmental protection projects. Practice shows that this practice is very effective in curbing white pollution, and the use of plastic bags has plummeted by 9%. At the same time, the tax also raised a considerable sum of money for environmental protection projects in Ireland, and the national environmental awareness was also improved.

Finland

The Finnish government is going to nearly double the garbage tax in three years to reduce the amount of garbage in the country. According to this plan, the Finnish government will increase the tax per ton of garbage from 15.14 euros to 23 euros. By 25, the tax per ton of garbage will increase to 3 euros. According to the planning of relevant departments, by 27, the traditional way of dumping and burying garbage will be completely abandoned, all kinds of garbage will be used to the maximum extent, and the remaining garbage will also be used as fuel to produce heat energy.

China and Hong Kong

In late May p>27, the Environmental Protection Department of the Special Administrative Region of China announced a proposal for plastic bag tax. According to the plan, in order to protect the environment and reduce the use of plastic bags, the Hong Kong government plans to levy a plastic bag tax for shopping, which will be implemented as soon as the end of the year. At that time, Hong Kong citizens will have to pay .5 yuan dollars tax for shopping in supermarkets or convenience stores. The store is responsible for collecting the tax and paying it to the government every quarter. If the store violates the rules, embezzles the tax or pays the tax on behalf of customers to avoid the business being affected, it can be fined up to HK$ 2,. The Hong Kong Environmental Protection Department will set up a small team to make surprise inspections of shops. For citizens who refuse to pay the plastic bag tax, "it is equivalent to buying things without paying, and the store can call the police."

United States

In p>1971, the United States Congress introduced a bill on the nationwide taxation of sulfide emissions to the environment, and in 1 987, it proposed to tax the emissions of sulfur monoxide and nitric oxide. Since then, the U.S. government has gradually introduced tax methods into the field of environmental protection, and has formed a relatively perfect environmental tax system, mainly including consumption tax, gasoline tax, taxes and expenses related to automobile use (such as truck and trailer consumption tax, tire tax, etc.), mining tax, solid waste treatment tax (fee), sulfur dioxide tax, environmental income tax, etc., as well as more environmental tax preferential policies.

From the point of collection and management, the collection and management of environmental taxes in the United States is very strict. It is uniformly collected by the tax authorities and paid into the Ministry of Finance, which will bring it into the general fund budget and trust fund respectively, and the latter will be transferred to the super fund under it.

Australia

Environmental protection in Australia mainly involves air environmental protection, biodiversity protection, coastal and marine environmental protection, greenhouse gas emission control, land and forest environmental protection and water resources protection, etc. Its tax policies for environmental protection mainly involve coastal and marine environmental protection, greenhouse gas emission control, land and forest environmental protection and water resources protection, etc. In order to protect the marine environment, the Australian government gives tax incentives to offshore fishing. In 1997, Australia passed the Income Tax Estimation Act, and signed an agreement with 322 farmers. By reducing or exempting farmers' income tax, it urged farms to protect trees (planting trees and not cutting trees) and water resources and maintain ecological imbalance.

the Australian government gives tax incentives to enterprises that reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Tourism enterprises protect forests and carry out environmental management, such as collecting garbage, etc., and the government gives them corresponding tax relief. Individuals and legal persons are encouraged to save and use water effectively through income tax reduction or exemption. In addition, in order to reduce environmental pollution, the government has also levied quasi-tax garbage fees and water treatment fees on legal persons and individuals.

The garbage fee and the information management fee belong to the income of local governments (cities), and the policies vary from place to place. Some are based on the value of real estate, some are based on the area of real estate, and some are levied in other ways. For example, in Brisben, garbage charges are levied according to the number of trash cans, water treatment charges are levied by commercial units according to the number of toilets and water consumption, water treatment charges are levied by industrial units according to the number of toilets and the amount of wastewater, and individuals charge a fixed fee by family.

Netherlands

The Netherlands is famous for its beautiful environment in the world, and it is one of the OECD countries that levied environmental taxes earlier. Dutch environmental taxes mostly belong to special-purpose taxes, which are characterized by small taxes. The tax rates of various environmental taxes are very clear and detailed, and there are many taxes and they go deep into all aspects of national life. With the improvement and rapid development of Dutch environmental tax system, the proportion of environmental tax revenue in total tax revenue has been increasing, from 1.22% in 1 996 to 14% in 24, accounting for 3.5% of GDP. At the same time, Dutch environmental taxes are mostly special-purpose taxes, so most of their tax revenues are used as special funds for special purposes, and all of them are used for environmental protection expenses.

In addition, when formulating environmental taxes, the Netherlands fully considers that different consumption behaviors of the same product will have different impacts on the environment, so most of them make some provisions on tax reduction and exemption for behaviors that have little impact on the environment, which has played a better role in protecting the environment.

The taxes specially designed for environmental protection in the Netherlands mainly include: fuel tax, energy regulation tax, uranium tax, water pollution tax, groundwater tax, waste tax, garbage tax, noise tax, excess manure tax, dog tax, etc. From a practical point of view, based on the differences between the central government and local governments in terms of collection purposes and conditions, this country has given local governments great flexibility in the collection and management of environmental taxes, and fully coordinated the cooperation between tax departments and various environmental and resource departments, ensuring the high efficiency of Dutch environmental tax collection.

Poland

Poland began to set up environmental tax and resource tax in 197, with the aim of encouraging polluters to adjust their behavior. However, due to the low tax rate at the beginning, especially under the planned economy system, the response of production and consumption to price signals is very weak, and environmental taxes can not effectively play a role through the price mechanism, but more play a role in raising funds for environmental investment and pollution reduction projects. Subsequently, in 1989, 199 and 1992, the environmental tax was reformed, the tax rate level was greatly improved, and the collection system was strengthened. Environmental tax refers to environmental taxes and fees that have a positive impact on environmental protection. The concept of environmental tax can be divided into three categories: narrow sense, middle sense and broad sense.

in a narrow sense, environmental tax means environmental pollution tax, that is, a special tax levied by the state on economic entities that cause environmental pollution in order to limit the scope and degree of environmental pollution. Environmental tax in Chinese means that environmental tax is a tax levied or reduced on all units and individuals who develop and utilize environmental resources (including natural resources and environmental capacity resources) according to their intensity of development and utilization of environmental resources and the degree of pollution and damage to the environment. This view holds that environmental tax mainly includes natural resource tax and environmental capacity tax.

in a broad sense, environmental tax is considered to be the general name of various taxes and tax items related to the utilization and protection of environmental resources in the tax system. According to this view, environmental taxes include not only pollution emission tax and natural resource tax, but also taxes to raise funds for specific environmental purposes, as well as tax means used by the government to influence the nature and scale of some environmental-related economic activities. The Ministry of Environmental Protection, the National Bureau of Statistics and the Ministry of Agriculture jointly released the Bulletin of the First National Pollution Source Survey today. According to the data, in 27, the total amount of wastewater discharged nationwide was 29.281 billion tons, and the total amount of waste gas discharged was 63.72369 billion cubic meters. Zhang Lijun, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, said that the Ministry of Finance, the State Administration of Taxation and the Ministry of the Environment have been studying the issue of environmental taxes and have already made some basic considerations. This census will provide better data support for the study of environmental tax.

over the past two years, through the concerted efforts of various regions, relevant departments and census institutions at all levels, 57, people have been mobilized and a lot of meticulous work has been done, and the census tasks set by the State Council have been successfully completed. This national survey of pollution sources is a major survey of national conditions and strength, which has further clarified the basic situation of four major types of pollution sources in China, initially established national and local archives of various key pollution sources and pollution source information databases at all levels, laid a foundation for pollution source management and the establishment of a new "Twelfth Five-Year" environmental statistics platform, and provided rich basic information for implementing Scientific Outlook on Development, transforming economic growth mode, adjusting and optimizing economic structure and formulating the "Twelfth Five-Year" environmental protection plan. Through the publicity and implementation of the census work and extensive participation from all walks of life, the awareness of environmental protection of the whole people has been further improved.

Zhang Lijun, vice minister of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, said that there is a curve between pollution and economic development in academic circles. According to the road taken by developed countries, when the per capita income is 8, US dollars, pollution reaches its peak, and then it begins to decline. Because China is taking a different path of economic development from that of developed countries, it is possible that China will peak at $3, per capita and then start to decline.

The plan is released

After the financial crisis broke out, China has accelerated the adjustment of industrial structure, and the pressure of international public opinion on China's energy conservation and emission reduction has further increased. The timing, background and internal and external environment for the introduction of environmental taxes have finally matured.

At the beginning of p>28, the relevant ministries and commissions in China began to study the environmental tax levy. In July 21, the first draft of the environmental tax collection plan was released, and the timetable for the collection in 213 has also been initially determined.

according to the plan, before levying resources nationwide, relevant departments will select some key cities for pilot projects after discussion and agreement. It is reported that Jiangxi, Hunan, Hubei and other provinces and cities may become pilot sites for environmental taxes. After the pilot program is mature, it will accelerate the promotion of environmental tax legislation.

authoritative sources said that before the first draft of environmental tax was formed, * * * had three alternatives. The final scheme was selected because its design principle is closer to the essence of environmental tax: the environmental pollution cost of market players is digested into the market price, that is, the cost is turned into tax rate, and the purposes of environmental protection, energy conservation and emission reduction are finally realized. At the same time, according to the principle of "polluter pays tax", the burden on enterprises is not increased.

Implementation time

On August 4, 21, the Environmental Planning Institute of the Ministry of Environmental Protection stated that the research on environmental tax has achieved initial results, and the Ministry of Finance, State Taxation Administration of The People's Republic of China and the Ministry of Environmental Protection will submit the request for the introduction and pilot of environmental tax to the State Council.

As for the specific timetable for the implementation of environmental tax, China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development has proposed a road map and specific timetable for the establishment of relevant environmental tax in China in three stages.

in the first stage, it will take 3-5 years to improve other environmental-related taxes, such as resource tax, consumption tax and travel tax. As soon as possible, an independent environmental tax will be levied, and the discharge of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon dioxide and wastewater will all be possible choices for environmental tax purposes.

in the second stage, it will take 2-4 years to further improve other taxes and tax policies related to the environment. Expand the scope of environmental tax collection. If the environmental tax is not levied at the first stage, it needs to be levied at this stage.

in the third stage, we will continue to expand the scope of environmental tax collection in three to four years. Combined with the reform of environmental tax system, the overall optimization is carried out to build a mature and perfect environmental tax system.

Agree to levy

Although China's environmental protection system has played a certain role in curbing the increasingly serious environmental pollution, the overall effect is not ideal. Deputies to the National People's Congress suggested that a special environmental tax law should be formulated to give play to the macro-control role of environmental tax in reducing environmental pollution, improving natural ecology, improving resource utilization, achieving social harmony and sustainable development of the national economy.

The relevant departments of the Ministry of Finance agreed with the representative's proposal of levying environmental tax in due course, and the NPC Financial and Economic Committee suggested that the Ministry of Finance, State Taxation Administration of The People's Republic of China and the Ministry of Environment.