Research On Environmental Tax Collection And Environmental Protection Investment Behavior Of Listed Companies

As the main economic entity in society,enterprises will inevitably cause environmental losses in the process of production and operation.In order to restrict the environmental pollution of enterprises and guide enterprises to carry out environmental protection work,"The Environmental Protection Tax Law of the People’s Republic of China" came into being.Since the implementation of the Environmental Protection Tax Law on January 1,2018,the sewage charging system has been abolished at the same time,and the implementation of this law has been given the expectation of changing corporate environmental governance behavior.Therefore,from the perspective of environmental tax collection and corporate environmental investment behavior,this paper explores the current status of implementation of China’s environmental protection tax law and its policy guiding function.Based on this,this paper takes China’s listed companies as a sample and collects environmental tax and environmental protection investment data of listed companies to analyze the status of environmental tax collection and environmental protection investment behavior of enterprises.In this process,we focused on the environmental protection tax burden of listed companies in China’s heavily polluting industries,and used empirical research methods to explore the relationship between environmental tax collection and environmental investment behavior of heavily polluting companies.Finally,a listed company was selected to analyze the environmental tax burden and environmental protection investment situation of the heavily polluting enterprises after environmental protection tax collection.The research results show that:(1)After the collection of environmental protection tax,the differences in environmental protection taxes between listed companies in China are obvious,and there is a phenomenon that some enterprises pay environmental protection taxes significantly lower than the previous sewage charges.At the same time,in the heavily polluting industries,the environmental protection tax paid by companies in several industries are generally high,but the overall environmental protection tax burden of the heavily polluting industries is relatively low,and the environmental protection tax collection does not constitute a serious tax burden.(2)After the environmental protection tax was levied,listed companies in the heavily polluting industries increased their environmental protection investment in 2018 to varying degrees,and there was a clear phenomenon that companies with higher environmental protection tax burdens had greater environmental protection investment.Therefore the environmental investment behavior of heavily polluting enterprises is relevant.(3)Through case studies,it is found that preferential tax policies for environmental protection tax and corporate environmental governance are the main reasons for the obvious drop in environmental protection tax paid by enterprises.At the same time,environmental tax collection is intended to guide enterprises control the concentration of pollutant emissions and strengthen the recycling of resources.The case company’s environmental investment behavior of increasing investment in environmental protection facilities and investing in industrial transformation and upgrading projects reflects the policy guiding effect of environmental protection tax collection.And it is found that there are some problems during the collection of environmental taxes.Therefore,this paper gives some suggestions to the government,enterprises and third-party agencies,such as optimizing environmental tax laws,making good use of environmental tax preferential policies,and improve the green financial system.