China to Levy Environmental Tax – Hualong Online

Translated by CDT from Hualong Online (华龙网):

Levying an environmental tax will be a major item on the Chinese government’s agenda in 2008. Work will be done in a joint effort between the Ministry of Finance, the General Administration of Tax, and the State Environmental Protection Agency. Two researchers with the Ministry of Finance proposed three options for an environmental tax in November 2007.

1. A general tax that aims at the general public as beneficiaries of a better environment;

2. Pollution emission tax that focuses on the polluters based on the volume of emissions.

3. Polluting products tax that will be calculated on the commodities consumed by the consumers, such as energy sources, fertilizer, mercury cadmium batteries, etc. [Full Text in Chinese]