Research On The Impact Of Environmental Protection Tax On Environmental Protection Investment In The Coal Industry

Environmental protection is a global problem,and solving the problems caused by environmental pollution and ecological damage has become an important issue of concern for governments and all sectors of society.As the world’s largest developing country,China has achieved rapid economic growth since its reform and opening up in1978.However,China’s long-term sloppy economic development has brought about serious environmental pollution problems,making China’s sustainable economic development a bottleneck.In response,the government has implemented a series of regulatory measures aimed at protecting the environment,and the Environmental Protection Tax Law of the People’s Republic of China officially began to be levied on January 1,2018,guiding enterprises to reduce pollution and reduce emissions,increase investment in environmental protection,and enhance their green image through the form of taxation.And the coal industry,as a typical heavy polluting industry,did it draw attention to environmental protection after the environmental protection tax began to be levied? In the production process can take the initiative to strengthen environmental protection investment? These are the questions to be evaluated.This paper explores the mechanism between environmental protection tax and environmental protection investment by taking the Pegu tax and Porter’s hypothesis as the theoretical starting point,and then illustrates the current situation and problems of environmental protection tax and environmental protection investment in China by collecting a large amount of data,and uses the data of listed companies in the coal industry in Shanghai and Shenzhen A-shares from 2010-2021 to empirically analyze the impact of environmental protection tax on corporate environmental protection investment in China using a double fixed effects model.The impact of environmental protection tax on enterprises’ investment in environmental protection.It further explores the differences in coal enterprises’ behavior towards environmental protection investment under different competitive market conditions,and the heterogeneous effects on environmental protection investment that exist in different regions where coal enterprises are located.The following conclusions were obtained from the study:(1)Environmental protection tax has a significant promotion effect on environmental protection investment in the coal industry.(2)There is an inverted U-shaped relationship between environmental protection tax and environmental protection investment in the coal industry.(3)Compared to the low market competition group,environmental protection tax has a more significant promotion effect on environmental protection investment in the high market competition group.(4)Coal companies in central and eastern regions of China pay more attention to environmental protection investment compared to western regions.Finally,based on the shortcomings of China’s current environmental protection tax and environmental protection investment as well as the findings from the empirical analysis,we propose strategies to improve the deepening reform of China’s environmental protection tax and policy recommendations to stimulate enterprises’ environmental protection investment from three aspects: expanding the scope of taxation,setting a differentiated tax rate and enhancing the incentive effect of tax preferences.