Competitiveness and Exemptions From Environmental Taxes in Europe
Competitiveness and Exemptions From Environmental Taxes in Europe
复制标题
欧洲的竞争力和环境税豁免
DOI：
10.1023/a:1008230026880
复制
发表时间：
1999
影响因子：
5.9
通讯作者：
S. Speck
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
P. Ekins;S. Speck
一些欧洲国家开征了多种环境税。其实施的一个共同特点是包含豁免和税收减免，特别是针对制造业（某些部门）。本文分析了西欧国家豁免的模式和动机，明确了考虑豁免后名义税率和实际税率之间的差异。豁免的主要动机与对竞争力的担忧有关。虽然特定的环境密集型行业可能有一些令人担忧的理由，但即使这些行业也可能能够实现具有成本效益的环境改善，这样它们的竞争地位就不会过度劣势，而对于像英国这样结构的经济体来说，环境税加退税计划（有时称为生态税改革）可能会在竞争力方面产生好处。这些豁免通常与利用环境税将社会成本内部化并给出基于全部生产成本的经济信号的环境经济逻辑背道而驰，并且很可能增加实现一定减排水平的成本。由于竞争力方面也没有什么理由，因此从经济和环境角度来看，它们仍然是未来实施环境税的一个特点是不可取的。
A number of European countries have introduced a variety of environmental taxes. A common characteristic of their implementation is the inclusion of exemptions and tax relief, in particular for (some sectors of) manufacturing industry. This paper analyses the pattern and motivation of exemptions as they have developed in Western European countries, making clear the difference between the nominal and effective tax rates once the exemptions have been taken into account. The principal motivation for exemptions relates to concern about competitiveness. While particular environmentally-intensive sectors may have some grounds for concern, even these might be able to achieve cost-effective environmental improvements, such that their competitive position is not over-disadvantaged, while for an economy structured like the UK's, an environmental tax plus rebate scheme, sometimes called an ecological tax reform, would be likely to yield benefits in terms of competitiveness. The exemptions usually run counter to the environmental economic logic of using environmental taxes to internalise social costs and give economic signals that are based on the full costs of production, and they are likely to increase the costs of achieving a given level of emission reduction. With little justification for them also on the grounds of competitiveness, it would therefore be undesirable on both economic and environmental grounds for them to remain a feature of the implementation of environmental taxes in the future.