Research On The Influence Of Environmental "Fee To Tax" On Enterprise Environmental Performance

With the rapid development of urbanization and industrialization process,the problems of resource and environment constraint tightening and environmental pollution are still very serious.The report of the 20 th National Congress of the Communist Party of China pointed out that we should strengthen environmental protection and unswervingly follow the path of civilized development featuring increased production,a prosperous life and a sound ecological environment.The traditional extensive development model that obtains economic growth through overdrawing resources and environmental dividends is no longer sustainable.China urgently needs to seek a new path of green transformation and coordinate the relationship between economic growth and environmental protection.Since January 1,2018,the environmental protection tax(hereinafter referred to as "environmental tax")has been officially levied in place of the pollutant discharge fee,aiming to strengthen environmental protection efforts and further promote the construction of ecological civilization,demonstrating the CPC Central Committee’s firm determination to strengthen the construction of ecological civilization,and sending a strong signal that environmental supervision will continue to be strengthened in the future.However,whether environmental tax can correct the environmental pollution behavior of enterprises,achieve pollution reduction and carbon reduction,and improve the environmental performance of enterprises is still uncertain.In view of this,this paper regards the environmental protection "fee tax" policy as an exogenous event impact.Based on the differential model,this paper takes A-share listed enterprises from 2014 to 2021 as samples to explore the impact of environmental "fee tax" on the environmental performance of micro enterprises and its mechanism.Studies have shown that the implementation of environmental "fee change tax" can significantly improve the environmental performance of heavy polluting enterprises,and this conclusion is still valid after a series of robustness tests.Green technology innovation plays a partial mediating role in the impact of environmental "fee tax" policy on environmental performance.According to the mechanism analysis,enterprises with high internal control quality or high industry concentration and good legal system environment can improve their environmental performance significantly under the background of environmental "fee change tax" policy.In addition,the impact of environmental fee change on the environmental performance of heavy polluting enterprises varies with different property rights and different regions.The innovation of this study is reflected in the following aspects: On the one hand,the impact of environmental tax policy on enterprises’ green behavior decision-making is discussed from the micro perspective;On the other hand,an in-depth study of the mechanism of environmental tax policy’s impact on the environmental behavior of enterprises from both internal and external perspectives is helpful to reveal the impact of environmental tax reform on the environmental performance of heavy polluting enterprises,and provide useful references for fighting the battle of pollution prevention and control,further improving the green fiscal and tax system,and promoting high-quality economic development and high-level ecological environment protection in coordination.