Is Environmental Tax Imminent?

According to the world clothing and shoe net, recently, the People's Republic of China environmental protection tax law (Draft) was first submitted to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress for deliberation, pferring the existing sewage charge system to the environmental tax system, and collecting environmental taxes for the 4 categories of pollutants such as air pollutants, water pollutants, solid waste and noise.

The environmental pollution charge system established in 1979 is about to officially withdraw from the stage of history.

What will be the impact of the imposition of the green tax? What will the enterprises do to deal with it?

Is environmental tax imminent?

Advantages outweigh disadvantages

It has been nearly 10 years since the introduction of the environmental tax law from the motion to the draft.

The launch is a landmark event, which indicates that China's environmental governance system is mainly from the past administrative commanding mode to market means.

The "fee to tax" will play an important role in the prevention and control of environmental pollution. On the one hand, it will effectively solve the problems of inadequate rigor in law enforcement, local payment and department interference. On the other hand, tax increases will encourage enterprises to pursue energy conservation and emission reduction and speed up environmental investment. At the same time, the annual environmental tax of 50 billion yuan will provide financial support for environmental governance.

Lou Jiwei, Minister of finance, said in explanation of the draft that the current legislation is in accordance with the principle of "tax shifting", pferring the existing sewage charge system to the environmental tax system, and taking the current sewage charge standard as the lower limit of the green tax.

When the reporters studied in various places, most enterprises generally reflected that if the "fee to tax" was implemented, the tax burden of enterprises did not increase.

Some small and medium-sized enterprises and private enterprises even believe that fee to tax reform can be good news, which helps different economies to compete in an equal environment and is conducive to healthy and standardized development of the industry.

It is reported that every province and city has a large number of key points.

Because "policy exemption" does not need to pay sewage charges.

The waiver of sewage charges has become an excuse for some local preferential policies to lighten the burden of enterprises, and even become a bargaining chip for other people's power and money pactions.

Once the "fee tax reform" is implemented, the most important thing is to pay the enterprises which are not standardized for the discharge fee, and the enterprises which are "taken care of" by the local government departments will increase the force.

In addition, pollutants such as paper making are easy to measure.

The pressure will be greater in the future.

Many people in the industry believe that under the environment of reducing costs and reducing taxes, the overall tone of the environmental tax is "soft", such as no tax on carbon dioxide, tax-free agricultural pollution and motor vehicle exhaust.

Faced with the pressure of economic downturn, the Levy of environmental taxes will only be matched to the minimum standards, and will not raise the tax rate. It does not really reflect the principle of "polluter pays".

Old problems are not solved, but new ones are emerging.

First is the collection problem.

As the first special specialized tax in China, the environmental protection tax is approved by the environmental protection department and the tax collection department (the tax authorities) is in the "two skin" state. The local environmental protection bureau must first approve the taxable pollutants, and the tax authorities can levy taxes accordingly.

Whether the approver of environmental protection department, as the basis of collection, can be influenced by local protectionism and other local protectionism, has become a key link in whether environmental protection tax can play a role.

Secondly, the environmental tax should clarify the rights and obligations of the taxpayers, in addition to coordinating with the resources tax and value-added tax departments, it should also coordinate with the taxes and fees already implemented, such as sewage charges, mineral development and protection fees, and gradually improve the matching mechanism.

Yin Zhongqing, member of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, believes that the unclear income attribution may result in conflicts of interests and mutual interests between the central government and local governments. The unclear direction of use may lead to the obstruction of the environmental tax levy.

To levy environmental taxes, we must abide by the basic procedures of statutory taxation. We should make clear to the public the first time when we should collect and use them and how to supervise them.

Influence analysis

Chen Jining, Minister of the Ministry of environmental protection, has said that the core purpose of the establishment of the environmental tax is not to increase taxes, but to set up a mechanism to encourage enterprises to emit less pollutants and to pay more taxes and less taxes.

According to the draft opinion, the key point of monitoring the environmental protection tax is to refer to the taxpayers in the key polluting industries such as thermal power, steel, cement, electrolytic aluminum, coal, metallurgy, building materials, mining, chemical engineering, petrochemical, pharmaceutical, light industry (brewing, paper making, fermentation, sugar making, vegetable oil processing), textile, leather making, and other key polluting industries.

This means that once the green tax is levied, the above industries will be more significantly affected.

This will help to curb the development of enterprises with high energy consumption and high pollution, help economic pformation and upgrading, and promote the production capacity of steel and coal industries.

From the point of view of the object of Taxation, air pollutants in the four major pollutants will account for "big head".

According to the draft tax standard, about 90% comes from air pollutants, and about 10% comes from water pollutants.

From the industry forecast, air pollution, ferrous metal smelting and calendering processing industry, non-metallic mineral products industry, non-ferrous metal smelting and calendering processing industry, chemical industry, power, thermal production and supply industries and other 5 industries to pay environmental taxes, accounting for 88% of the total ambient air pollution bonded income.

In water pollutants, 8 industries, including chemical industry, papermaking, medicine, textile industry, ferrous metal smelting and calendering processing, agricultural and sideline food processing, fermentation and brewing, leather making, will pay 80% of the total environmental taxes.

Duan Bingde, an Associate Research Fellow of the State Council Development Research Center, believes that two types of enterprises will benefit from the implementation of the green tax in the future. The first category is the enterprises that have always paid more attention to energy conservation and environmental protection, such as some central enterprises, whose emission targets have reached the international leading level.

Such enterprises in the competition will pay less taxes because of the remarkable achievements of environmental protection measures, and further enhance their competitiveness.

The second type of beneficiaries are enterprises engaged in energy conservation and environmental protection businesses, such as sewage treatment, waste gas treatment, solid waste management and other industries. After the implementation of the green tax, more business opportunities will be gained.

The second type of enterprises include some third party enterprises that are engaged in environmental protection, including environmental protection departments and environmental protection business segments of some enterprises groups.

The third party environmental monitoring and environmental audit will play an important role, and the third party enterprises will gain more opportunities in the industrial park and the upgrading and pformation of energy saving and environmental protection in traditional industries because of their business focus, patent technology and talent reserves.

Some agencies believe that the introduction of the green tax will have a significant role in promoting the whole industry. On the one hand, it will help the upstream industry to survive the fittest, speed up the exit of the zombie enterprises, and optimize the allocation of resources. On the other hand, with the promotion of the environmental protection enthusiasm of the whole society, enterprises will increase their willingness to reduce emissions, and the investment in environmental protection will accelerate, and the relevant environmental protection enterprises will benefit greatly.

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How to deal with

In today's major trend, the development of enterprises is a green pformation, who will be the first to pform, who will seize the opportunity.

It can be seen from the published draft that the state will have more tendentiousness towards environment-friendly enterprises, and more environmental policies will be introduced later. This will be a great opportunity for enterprises with early pformation.

In addition, enterprises must also have long-term development awareness, respond positively, increase scientific and technological innovation, and improve the utilization efficiency of resources through the use of clean energy and environmentally friendly raw materials, so as to truly achieve the goal of environmental protection.

In fact, the impact of policy regulations on the industry is not immediate. Rather, it affects the cost investment flow of individual enterprises for a long time, resulting in sustained and far-reaching impact on the industry.

From the legislation to the implementation of environmental protection tax, many aspects need further consultation, discussion and even game.

For example, how to achieve adequate collection and management, and how to calculate the tax basis of taxable pollutants, whether we can not only safeguard social interests, but also safeguard the normal interests of industries and enterprises, strengthen the rigid governance of pollution discharge enterprises, and prevent the tendency of excessive taxation.

Jiang Huiling, director of the Institute of Applied Law of the supreme law, said that a green tax law should not be expected to solve all environmental problems. It should be closely integrated with other environmental protection measures, and coordinate the environmental tax law with the tax collection and management law and the environmental protection law.

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