环境保护税对企业绩效的影响研究：基于税额标准的提高

2018年中国正式开征环境保护税，这是我国首个以环境保护为直接政策目标的税种。环境保护税由排污费改革而来，有一半以上省份直接平移排污费收费标准，其他省份提高了税额标准。本文以2016—2019年中国上市公司季度数据为研究样本，利用PSM-DID方法评估了环境保护税税额标准提高对企业绩效的短期经济影响。实证结果表明，在短期内环境保护税税额标准提高并不会对企业绩效产生显著的影响，这一结论在进行三重差分、更换指标和数据等稳健性检验之后仍然成立。此外，本文发现在制度环境较好的东部地区，环境保护税对企业绩效的短期抑制作用更为显著，税额标准提高降低了企业的净资产收益率和总资产报酬率，显示出制度环境对环境保护税具有加强效应，从而促使企业有更好的环境表现。对此，本文提出应持续优化环境保护税制度，提高征管能力和水平，调高部分地区环境保护税税额标准，改进中西部地区制度环境等建议。

Impact of Environmental Protection Tax on Corporate Performance Based on Tax Rate Increase

In 2018, China officially introduced the environmental protection tax(EPT), the first tax in China with environmental protection as a direct policy objective. The EPT is derived from the reform of pollutant discharge fees, with more than half of the provinces directly leveling off the charge rates, while another part of the provinces raise the tax rates. Taking the quarterly data of Chinese listed companies from 2016 to 2019 as research samples, this paper uses the PSM-DID method to evaluate the short-term economic impact of increased EPT rate on firm performance. The empirical results indicate that the economic effect of EPT is weak in the short term. The increase in EPT rate does not have a significant impact on firm performance in the short run, and this finding still holds after robustness tests such as triple difference, replacement of indicators and data. Besides, the paper concludes that in the eastern region with a better institutional setting, the increase of EPT rate has a significant negative correlation with the rate of return on equity (ROE) and the rate of return on assets (ROA), which means that institutional environment have a strengthening effect on the EPT effects, prompting enterprises to better environmental performance. In this regard, this paper suggests that the relevant institutions should continue to optimize the EPT system, improve capacity and level of EPT collection and management, raise the EPT rate in some regions, as well as improve the institutional environment in central and western areas.