财税与公共管理学院知识库

  当今时代，环境问题备受公众关注，为了促进经济社会全面、协调和可持续发展，企业作为经济社会的主体，单纯地追求经济利益已不再现实，实践绿色行动已被视为各个主体环境责任的一部分，甚至是必须履行的责任之一。党的十八大强调，发展绿色经济和绿色金融是当前国家发展进程中的必然形式，而党的二十大更进一步提出了绿色发展的重要理念，促进人与自然和谐共生。同时，报告将“实现人与自然和谐共生的现代化”上升到“中国特色现代化”的核心内容之一。在这种背景下，许多环境保护政策已经被制定实施。2018年１月１日，《环境保护税法》正式实施，长达近40年的排污费政策被废止，成为其中最重要的一项。针对环境保护税的开征，企业普遍持两种态度：一种是企业积极响应环境保护税政策，自觉履行环境保护责任履行，减少污染物排放，肩负起保护环境责任；而另一种企业则是消极应对，不主动提高自身环境履行水平。因此，环境保护税开征是否促进企业环境责任的履行？对该疑惑的解答是本文研究环境保护税政策的重点内容。

  为研究这个问题，本研究的主要研究对象选取为重污染企业，研究环境保护税政策对企业环境责任履行的影响，针对结果提出对策建议。本文首先对环境保护税和企业环境责任等相关文献进行了梳理。在理论方面，涵盖了外部性理论、庇古税理论、波特假说理论、生态补偿理论。本研究选取2014-2021年在我国A股上市企业为研究对象，企业环境责任为被解释变量，使用固定效应双重差分模型，探究我国重污染企业环境责任的履行是否受到了环境保护税政策的影响，具体的影响机制是什么，得出结论从而促进企业环境责任履行。经实证研究分析发现：开征环境保护税能够明显地促进处于重污染行业的企业履行其环境责任。本文进行了三种方式的稳健性检验：一是更换被解释变量衡量指标。二是进行PSM-DID检验。三是安慰剂检验，均通过了稳健性检验。进一步分析企业的异质性发现，对于不同资产规模的企业中，环境保护税政策对大规模企业的环境责任有显著的促进作用；对于不同融资约束水平的企业中，环境保护税能够更加有效地促进低融资约束企业履行环境责任。最后，为了激励企业履行好环境责任，发挥好环境保护税的政策效应，本研究根据实证结果，提出三个对策建议：一是优化环境保护税制度，发挥保护环境的政策效应；二是注重企业差异性，实行差异化环境保护税政策；三是针对我国国情，适时推动ESG信息披露制度改革。建立由政府、企业、社会组织、公众共同参与的环境治理体系，为实现美丽中国的愿景，实现人与自然和谐共生的现代化而奋斗。

      In the new era of widespread public concern about environmental issues, the concept of sustainable development and the construction of a resource- and environment-friendly society has become a hotly debated and important topic. It is no longer enough for enterprises to simply pursue economic interests, and practicing green environmental protection has become part of the social responsibility of each subject, or even one of the responsibilities that must be fulfilled. The 18th Party Congress emphasised that the development of green economy and green finance is an inevitable form of the current national development process, while the 20th Party Congress further put forward the important concept of green development to promote the harmonious coexistence of man and nature. At the same time, the report elevates "realising a modernisation in which human beings live in harmony with nature" to one of the core elements of "modernisation with Chinese characteristics". Against this backdrop, many environmental protection policies have been formulated and started to be implemented, and on 1 January 2018, the most representative Environmental Protection Tax Law was formally implemented, replacing the nearly 40-year-long sewage fee policy. Hence, concerning the implementation of the environmental protection tax, businesses typically exhibit two inclinations: one involves enterprises proactively embracing the environmental tax policy,consciously perform environmental protection responsibility to fulfil, reduce pollutant emissions, shoulder the responsibility to protect the environment; and the other is a passive response to the enterprise, do not take the initiative to improve their own level of environmental fulfilment. So, sewage charges to environmental protection tax can promote the fulfilment of corporate environmental responsibility? The answer to this question is the focus of this paper's research on environmental protection tax policy.

       To address this inquiry, the study primarily focuses on heavily polluting companies to investigate how the environmental protection tax policy influences the fulfillment of corporate environmental responsibility, along with offering policy suggestions. Specifically, this study reviews the pertinent literature regarding environmental protection tax and corporate environmental responsibility.In terms of theory, it covers the theory of externalities, the theory of Peguy tax, the theory of Porter's hypothesis, and the theory of ecological compensation. This study selects China's A-share listed companies from 2014-2021 as the research sample, establishes the explanatory variables with corporate environmental responsibility as the core, and constructs a fixed-effects double-difference model to explore whether the fulfilment of China's heavy polluting enterprises' environmental responsibility is affected by the environmental protection tax policy, and what is the influence mechanism of the specific mechanism, and draws a conclusion so as to facilitate the comprehensive enhancement of the fulfilment of corporate environmental responsibility. The empirical analysis revealed that the implementation of environmental protection taxes has a notable impact on incentivizing heavy polluting industry enterprises to meet their environmental obligations. In this paper, three types of robustness tests are carried out: firstly, the explanatory variables are replaced. The second is to conduct PSM-DID test. The third is placebo test, and all three methods mentioned above have been validated through robustness testing. Moreover, it was observed that within enterprises of varying asset scales, the environmental protection tax policy notably enhances the environmental accountability of larger corporations; among enterprises with different levels of financing constraints, the environmental protection tax is able to promote the fulfilment of environmental responsibility of low-financing-constraint enterprises more effectively. Ultimately, to maximize the policy impact of the environmental protection tax and motivate enterprises to fulfill their environmental responsibilities, this study proposes three recommendations based on the empirical findings: firstly, enhance the environmental protection tax framework to leverage its environmental safeguarding effects; secondly, focus on the differences of enterprises and implement the differentiated environmental protection tax policy; thirdly, in view of China's national conditions, push forward the reform of the ESG disclosure system in a timely manner. We will establish an environmental governance system jointly participated by the government, enterprises, social organisations and the public, and strive to realise the vision of a beautiful China and the modernisation of a harmonious coexistence between human beings and nature.