China's draft environmental protection tax draft has been first reviewed

On August 29, the "People's Republic of China Environmental Protection Tax Law (Draft)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Draft") was submitted to the 22nd National Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China for consideration at its 22nd meeting. According to the draft, China intends to collect an environmental protection tax, and regards the current sewage charges as the lower limit of the environmental protection tax. The taxable pollutants are atmospheric pollutants, water pollutants, solid waste and noise. With the advancement of the legislative process, the current 18 tax categories in China are expected to increase to 19.

It is understood that this legislation is based on the principle of "tax-negative translation" and transfers the current sewage charges system to the environmental tax system. China has established a sewage fee system since 1979. In 2015, it collected sewage charges of 17.3 billion yuan and paid 280,000 households.

Taking into account the fact that the situation varies greatly from place to place, the draft authorizes the provincial government to increase the applicable tax amount of taxable pollutants on the basis of the tax amount standard specified in the “Economy Tax Tax Table” and report it to the Standing Committee of the same Reported to the National Standing Committee and the State Council for the record. How to link up with the sewage charge system, the draft stipulates that every taxable air pollutant with no or no discharge outlets should be sorted by the number of pollution equivalents from the largest to the smallest, and impose environmental protection taxes on the first three pollutants; Taxable water pollutants are sorted according to the number of pollution equivalents from the largest to the smallest, and the environmental taxes are levied on the top five items of heavy metal pollutants and the first three items of other pollutants.

The draft regards the current sewage charges as the lower limit of the environmental protection tax, and stipulates that the air pollutant tax shall be 1.2 yuan per pollution equivalent, the water pollutant shall be 1.4 yuan, and the solid waste shall be 5 to 1,000 yuan per ton according to different types; Noise is in excess of decibels, and the tax is 350 to 11,200 yuan per month.