AN ENVIRONMENTAL TAX AS AN INSTRUMENT OF THE STATE ECOLOGICAL POLICY IMPLEMENTATION
Abstract
The article investigates the state of environmental taxation in Ukraine for the period from 2011 to 2020. The main task is to identify the problems and shortcomings of the environmental taxation system in Ukraine and identify approaches to its improvement. To this end, the article carried out (1) an analysis of the structure and dynamics of environmental tax income to the general and special funds of the consolidated budget of Ukraine, (2) the structure of environmental tax income to the consolidated budget was compared with that of national economy expenditures for the elimination of pollution consequences, and the structure investment needs of Ukraine for the implementation of the EU Directives in terms of environmental protection. As a result of the analysis, it was found that despite the constant increase in environmental tax rates in Ukraine, the increase in its revenues by more than 2 times, the consolidated budget funds are not enough (from 20% to 50%) to finance the necessary environmental protection measures. At the same time, the established environmental tax rates do not encourage economic entities to modernize their production. A significant discrepancy between the tax burden on the "polluters" of water bodies (3% of the environmental tax total amount) and the levels of their polluting activities (30% – 40% of all expenditures of the national economy on the elimination of the consequences of pollution) was revealed, which violates the “polluter pays” principle. Transferring a significant part (up to 46%) of environmental tax revenues to the general budget fund makes it impossible to direct such payments to measures addressing urgent environmental problems. In order to improve the system of environmental taxation in Ukraine, article (1) proposes to ensure the direction of environmental tax revenues to a special budget fund and (2) defines the possibility of increasing funding sources for solving urgent environmental problems using the consolidated budget by expanding the tax base and increasing environmental tax rates in terms of environmental damage caused to water bodies.
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