An Empirical Study Of The Effect Of China’s Tax Policy On Energy Saving And Emission Reduction For High-energy-consumption Enterprises

Since the reform and opening-up, the economy of our country has witnessed greatprogress, but also pay heavy price in resources and environment. The contradiction betweeneconomic development and resources and environment has become increasingly acute. Inorder to practice the scientific outlook on development and realize the target of energy savingand emission reduction, the government has taken a series of economic, administrative andlegal means. As a very important means of macroeconomic regulation, the tax policy hasplayed an important role of incentives and restraints to energy saving and emission reduction.In recent years, more than30tax policies have been respectively set in value-added tax,consumption tax, enterprise income tax, resources tax and other taxes to promote the savingof energy and resource and environmental protection, which played a certain effect. However,compared with special tax system of resource utilization and pollution emissions in advancedcountries, tax policy for energy saving and emission reduction in China is still appear to besporadic and scattered, not forming a supporting system of tax, and the leverage of tax has notbeen fully used. Therefore, it is necessary to timely understand and grasp the effect of taxpolicy on energy saving and emission reduction, combining with the actual situation in ourcountry, especially for high-energy-consumption enterprises, so that the national policy ofenergy saving and emission reduction can get more rapid development.This paper makes the high-energy-consumption enterprises as the object of study. Basedon the theoretical analysis about tax policy of energy saving and emission reduction, the papermakes an empirical analysis of the effect of tax policy on the energy saving and emissionreduction, and gives some advices to perfect the tax policy. First of all, the paper starts withthe background and significance of research, reviewing the foreign and domestic researchliterature, and states energy saving and emission reduction, the theory basis of tax policy onenergy saving and emission reduction and the definition of high-energy-consumptionenterprises, and then carries on the analysis from three aspects, including the status of energysaving and emission reduction and tax policy, as well as the impact of tax policy on energysaving and emission reduction. Secondly, Based on the data of energy consumption andemissions per unit output valve and tax revenue and so on from1996to2012, the paper makes an empirical analysis of the effects of China’s tax policy on energy saving andemission reduction for high-energy-consumption enterprises with Engle-Granger method,including unit root test, co-integration test, and correlation analysis. The results show that theproportion of value-added tax revenue about energy saving and emission reduction in thewhole tax revenue is significantly in negative correlation with energy consumption andemissions per unit output valve, which demonstrates value-added tax policy about energysaving and emission reduction can promote energy saving and emission reduction effectively.However, the proportion of consumption and resource tax revenue about energy saving andemission reduction in the whole tax revenue are in positive correlation with energyconsumption and emissions per unit output valve, which demonstrate consumption andresource tax policy do not play their proper roles. Finally, the paper puts forward threeprinciples, concrete suggestions and supporting measures to perfect tax policy, combiningwith the current development. Three principles include fair and efficiency, combination ofrewards and punishments and step by step. Concrete suggestions include optimization of VAT,adjustment of consumption tax, reform of resource tax and introduction of environmental tax.Supporting measures include efficiency standards of energy, trading market of emissions,demonstration areas of energy saving and emission reduction.