Study On The Impact Of Changing Environmental Protection Fee Into Tax On Carbon Emission

In recent years,China’s economic development level has been continuously improving,and its comprehensive national strength has been continuously strengthening.However,problems such as environmental pollution and ecological degradation have also emerged.In the suggestions on key tasks in the Report on the Work of the Government of the 2023 NPC and CPPCC,it is proposed to "promote green transformation of the development mode" and "steadily promote energy conservation and carbon reduction".The problem of environmental pollution has seriously affected people’s quality of life and the sustainable development of society,and in the long run,it will inevitably bring irreparable losses.The country and government are increasingly paying attention to environmental issues.The Environmental Protection Tax Law of the People’s Republic of China,which officially began implementation on January 1,2018,explicitly proposes the goal of protecting the ecological environment.The environmental protection tax has been levied for five years now,and its ability to achieve the purpose of levy has attracted public attention for a time.Therefore,this article will evaluate the policy of environmental protection tax through the effects of pollution discharge fees and environmental protection taxes on energy conservation and emission reduction.Starting from the development process of pollution discharge fees and environmental protection taxes,this article constructs a double difference(DID)model,compares and analyzes the energy-saving and emission reduction effects of the two,responds to public concerns,and proposes improvement suggestions that can further improve China’s environmental tax policy,improve the ecological environment,and achieve the "dual carbon" goal.This article is divided into five parts,namely:The first part is the introduction.Firstly,elaborate on the research background and significance of this article.Secondly,review relevant research literature at home and abroad,summarize the current research status,and summarize research trends.Finally,organize the research ideas and framework,and explain the research methods,innovations,and shortcomings of the paper.The second part introduces relevant concepts and theoretical mechanisms.First of all,we reviewed the domestic and foreign data to define the concept of environmental protection tax,and then explained its theoretical basis:externality theory,Porter hypothesis and pollution shelter hypothesis.The third part is an analysis of the current situation of environmental protection tax in China.Firstly,the development process of pollution discharge fees and environmental protection taxes will be reviewed.Secondly,specific explanations will be provided on the current collection regulations of environmental protection taxes in China.Finally,combined with the carbon emissions of major economies in the world,the current situation of carbon emissions in China will be studied and analyzed.The fourth part is an empirical study on the impact of changing environmental protection fees to taxes on carbon emissions.This paper takes the carbon emissions of 30 provinces in China(excluding Tibet)from 2008 to 2020 as the research object,takes the dummy variable of policy change as the core explanatory variable,builds a double difference model,and on this basis,conducts robustness test and heterogeneity analysis to explore the impact of environmental protection taxes on carbon emissions.Finally,a mechanism test was conducted on the impact of environmental protection fee and tax reform on carbon emissions.By introducing variables of industrial structure rationalization and industrial structure upgrading,an attempt was made to clarify whether the policy effect of environmental protection tax reform on carbon emissions was achieved through the aforementioned mechanism.The fifth part is the research conclusion and policy recommendations.Based on the previous research and analysis,combined with the results of empirical analysis,the conclusion of this article is drawn.Based on the conclusion,policy recommendations are proposed to further promote the green effect of environmental protection taxes.The research finds that the policy of changing environmental protection fees to taxes significantly curbs carbon emissions,and this paper ensures the reliability of this conclusion through a series of robustness tests.The analysis of the impact mechanism shows that the two moderating variables,rationalization and upgrading of industrial structure,can effectively promote the inhibitory effect of environmental protection fee tax reform on the carbon emissions of provinces with increased tax burden.In the heterogeneity analysis,regional heterogeneity analysis shows that environmental protection tax policies have varying degrees of impact on carbon emissions in different regions,with significant inhibitory effects on carbon emissions in the central and western regions,while the policy effects on the eastern and northeastern regions are not significant;The heterogeneity analysis of fiscal self-sufficiency indicates that the change of environmental protection fees to taxes has a significant inhibitory effect on carbon emissions in both high and low fiscal self-sufficiency provinces,and has a better policy effect on low fiscal self-sufficiency provinces.Based on the above conclusions,this article ultimately proposes targeted policy recommendations from four aspects:increasing environmental tax standards,setting differential tax rates according to local conditions,improving tax preferential policies,and strengthening departmental collaboration and management.