Heavy weight! Preliminary review of the draft amendment to the Environmental Protection Tax Law, including all volatile organic compounds in the scope of collection
The draft amendment to the Environmental Protection Tax Law was submitted for review at the 17th meeting of the Standing Committee of the 14th National People's Congress on September 8th. The revised draft will include all volatile organic compounds in the scope of environmental protection tax collection and strengthen the management of volatile organic compounds.
Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are a collective term for organic compounds involved in atmospheric photochemical reactions. They are an important source of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and ozone, and can cause atmospheric environmental problems such as haze and photochemical smog. Currently, there are over 300 detectable volatile organic compounds.
Finance Minister Lan Fo'an explained to the Standing Committee meeting that in 2016, when formulating the Environmental Protection Tax Law, the principle of "shifting tax burden" was followed, and only 18 volatile organic compounds such as benzene and formaldehyde that had previously been subject to pollution fees were changed to environmental protection taxes. It is necessary to revise the Environmental Protection Tax Law to include other volatile organic compounds in the scope of environmental protection tax collection in order to promote the improvement of air quality and strengthen ecological environment protection.
This amendment draft consists of one article, mainly authorizing the State Council to carry out pilot work on the collection of environmental protection taxes on enterprises, institutions, and other producers and operators that emit volatile organic compounds other than those specified in the "Table of Taxable Pollutants and Equivalent Values" attached to the Environmental Protection Tax Law, and to formulate pilot implementation measures, which shall be reported to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress for the record. At the same time, it stipulates that the State Council shall report on the pilot situation to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress within five years from the date of implementation of the pilot implementation measures, and timely propose suggestions for amending the law.
Lan Fo'an stated that considering that compared to other pollutants, volatile organic compounds have multiple emission sources, involve multiple process links, require higher monitoring and calculation requirements, have more complex tax calculation, and taxpayers lack experience in tax declaration and management, it is more difficult to implement tax collection and management. Therefore, it is more prudent to pilot the project first, accumulate experience, and then fully promote it.