The tax regulation in atmospheric air protection from harmful emissions

Abstract

The paper provides a comparative research of European and domestic tools of tax regulation in atmospheric air protection from pollution and other harmful impacts that can cause climate change. The structure and place of environmental taxes related to atmospheric air protection in the tax system of the EU countries and Ukraine are outlined. Special attention is paid to differences in the composition of environmental taxes related to atmospheric air protection in EU countries and Ukraine. The conclusions are made regarding the need to improve the level of environmentalization of the domestic tax system with the orientation on the EU experience of increasing the share of environmental taxes in the total tax revenues up to 5-6%. Meanwhile, taking into account the problem nature of increasing tax burden on economic entities, the increase of environmental taxes is suggested to be carried out at the respective reduction of taxes related to the results of producers’ economic activity, namely the income tax. The author also suggests the proportions of distributing the environmental tax revenues between general and specific budget funds and targeted nature protection-related use of revenues. The problems of distributing the environmental tax revenues between the budgets of various territorial levels due to long-distance atmospheric air pollution from the emission sources are emphasized, and their distribution between the public and local budgets is proposed to be carried out based on the subsidiarity principle.