At a press conference held by the State News Office on the morning of July 31, Vice Minister of Finance Wang Dongwei said that with China's economy turning to the stage of high-quality development, the current local tax system is not perfect, the structure is not reasonable, and the allocation of tax power is not sound enough. It is proposed to study the combination of urban maintenance and construction tax, additional education fee and local education additional tax into local additional tax, and authorize the local authorities to determine the specific applicable tax rate within a certain range. Reform the environmental protection tax to include volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the scope of collection. "

The contents of the original text relating to the inclusion of VOCs in the scope of collection are as follows:

First, expand local tax sources. In the current several large-scale taxes, the consumption tax belongs to the central government, mainly in the production and import links. In the next step, we should consider moving forward the collection of consumption tax and steadily demarcating the localities, taking into account such factors as the division of income between the central and local governments, the ability of tax collection and management, and so on, and implement it securely and step by step, so as to expand local sources of income. guide local governments to improve the consumption environment. The study combines the urban maintenance and construction tax, the additional education fee and the local education additional tax into a local additional tax, and authorizes the local authorities to determine the specific applicable tax rate within a certain range. Reform the environmental protection tax to include volatile organic compounds in the scope of collection.

Summarize the policy of VOCs taxation at each point in time:

Combined with the relevant policy documents of bringing VOCs into the scope of taxation over the years, in recent years, the Chinese government has been actively promoting the construction of ecological civilization and the prevention and control of environmental pollution, in which bringing VOCs into the scope of taxation is a key measure in this process. The following is a summary of the process of bringing VOCs into the scope of taxation and a summary of related opinions:

Initial phase:

In January 2016, the revised Air pollution Prevention and Control Law was formally implemented, defining the relevant requirements and legal responsibilities for the prevention and control of VOCs pollution for the first time, providing a legal basis for the comprehensive treatment of VOCs.

The policy proposes:

In September 2017, the Ministry of Environmental Protection and other departments jointly issued the work Plan for the Prevention and Control of VOCs pollution during the 13th five-year Plan, which proposed to study the timely inclusion of VOC emissions into the scope of environmental protection tax collection.

Action Plan:

In July 2018, the State Council issued the "three-year Action Plan for winning the Blue Sky Defense War", clearly proposing "to study the inclusion of VOCs in the scope of environmental protection tax".

Law enforcement:

In January 2018, the Environmental Protection tax Law was formally implemented, although 44 kinds of atmospheric taxable pollutants were established, but VOCs as a whole was not included in the scope of taxation.

Continue to advance:

In 2020, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment proposed at a press conference to study the inclusion of VOCs in the scope of environmental protection tax during the 14th five-year Plan period.

Policy deepening:

In November 2021, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council issued the opinions on deepening the Battle of pollution Prevention and Control, proposing to improve VOCs monitoring technology and emission calculation methods, and timely bring VOCs into the scope of environmental protection tax collection.

Define the goal:

In January 2024, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council released the "opinions on comprehensively promoting the Construction of a Beautiful China" and proposed to speed up the inclusion of VOCs in the scope of taxation.

The Ministry of Finance declared its position:

Vice Minister of Finance Wang Dongwei said at a news conference in July 2024 that environmental protection tax should be reformed, VOCs should be included in the scope of taxation, local tax sources should be expanded, local tax power should be appropriately expanded, and non-tax revenue management should be standardized.

Expert opinion:

Experts suggest that key industries can be considered to levy environmental tax on each row of VOCs, so as to achieve a synergistic effect of pollution reduction and carbon reduction.

Implementation significance:

Bringing VOCs into the scope of taxation marks a further improvement in the level of China's ecological civilization construction, which will help to promote the transformation, upgrading and clean transformation of key industries, and achieve high-quality development.

Economic benefit analysis:

The research shows that levying VOCs environmental protection tax can bring about a significant reduction in VOCs emissions, and the scale of tax revenue is larger, so the impact of macro-economy and industry is analyzed.

Goal setting:

The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the State Council have proposed that by 2025, total VOCs emissions will be more than 10 per cent lower than in 2020, achieving coordinated control of fine particles and ozone.

Through the proposal and implementation of this series of policies, we can see China's determination and action in bringing VOCs into the scope of taxation. This not only helps to improve the efficiency of environmental governance and promote green development, but also an important contribution to the cause of global environmental protection. With the gradual improvement and implementation of relevant policies, it is expected that VOCs emissions will be more effectively controlled. Source: VOCs emission reduction workstation