Study On The Effect Of Environmental Protection Tax On Air Pollution Reduction In China

Since the reform and opening up,China’s rapid economic development has been accompanied by the problem of high pollution and high consumption,which has caused irreversible damage to China’s ecological environment.On January 1,2018,China’s first special tax for the purpose of protecting the environment-environmental protection tax was officially implemented,which opened the prelude to the reform of China’s pollution charges into taxes,and also enriched the basic framework of China’s environmental protection tax system.The implementation of environmental protection tax also reflects the determination of our government to reform environmental governance.In 2020,the Chinese government announced at the United Nations General Assembly that China is striving to achieve the peak of carbon dioxide emissions by2030,and achieve the goal of carbon neutrality by 2060.In 2021,the government worked out the working guidelines for achieving the peak of carbon emissions by 2030 in the government work report.In the same year,the two sessions emphasized that the relevant work must be fully implemented.Protecting the ecological environment,saving energy and reducing emissions,and improving the efficiency of energy use are an important part of China’s efforts to promote industrial restructuring.Achieving the important goal of protecting the ecological environment can also promote high-quality economic development.Air pollution is the most important component of China’s environmental problems,and it is an important part of China’s environmental protection policy.It directly affects people’s daily life,and change is inevitable.Since the 18 th National Congress of the Communist Party of China,the whole society has focused on the increasingly serious haze weather and air pollution,and the treatment of air pollution has also been put on the agenda of the government.The 20 th National Congress of the Communist Party of China has put forward the goal of basically eliminating heavy pollution weather.Therefore,this paper focuses on the study of the emission reduction effect of environmental protection tax on air pollution has practical significance.In the process of protecting the environment,the government’s macro-control is crucial,and tax is an indispensable and important economic means of the government’s macro-control,which plays the role of "automatic stabilizer".The government participates in the distribution of interests between enterprises and individuals through taxation and affects social and economic activities.Therefore,the study on the emission reduction effect of environmental protection tax on air pollution has certain theoretical and practical value,which provides practical evidence and decision-making suggestions for the system designer.Based on the above background,the research in this paper theoretically defines the impact mechanism of environmental protection tax on the emission reduction of air pollution,which is specifically reflected in the impact of tax on the production cost of enterprises on their production decisions.On this basis,and by summarizing and combing the relevant theoretical literature,and then put forward the research hypothesis of this article,clear the objective of empirical research.Then this paper takes 30 provinces,cities and autonomous regions(except Tibet,Hong Kong,Macao and Taiwan)as the empirical research object,collates the relevant data from2014 to 2020,constructs a fixed effect model with environmental protection tax revenue as the explanatory variable and industrial exhaust emissions as the explanatory variable,and further verifies the research hypothesis of this paper,According to the different collection intensity of each region,each province in the country is divided into three groups for heterogeneity analysis based on regional differences,and 30 provinces in the country are divided into eastern,central and western regions for heterogeneity analysis based on economic development differences according to the differences in economic development levels of each region,to study whether there are regional differences in the emission reduction effects of environmental protection taxes.Finally,the method of replacing explanatory variables and adding control variables is used to conduct robustness test to ensure the accuracy and reliability of empirical results.Based on the above series of empirical studies,this paper summarizes the following conclusions: First,there is a significant negative correlation between environmental protection tax and industrial exhaust emissions,that is,the environmental protection tax has a significant effect on the reduction of air pollution;Second,different regional collection standards will lead to differences in the emission reduction effect of environmental protection taxes on air pollution;Third,the difference of economic development level,environmental affordability and other factors in different regions will lead to the difference of emission reduction effect of environmental protection tax on air pollution.Based on the empirical research and the actual development of China’s environmental protection tax system,this paper puts forward the following suggestions to improve the environmental protection tax system: First,improve the system design,mainly from three aspects: expanding the scope of taxation,optimizing the tax standard,and improving the tax preferential policies and punishment mechanism.Second,improve the tax collection and management system,mainly from improving the detection level and strictly implementing the system of earmarked funds.Third,improve the supporting measures,and put forward suggestions mainly from strengthening environmental protection publicity,improving environmental awareness and encouraging the development of environmental protection industry.