Enviromental taxes

The environmental taxation in Greece has not been implemented as much in other European countries. A positive step towards to a “green” reform of Greek taxation system is the new environmental tax on plastic bags. The Environmental taxation is applied to energy, transport and the depletion of natural resources. Examples of environmental taxation in Greece are the taxes on energy products and fossil fuels and registration taxes on vehicles. In practice, the application of environmental taxation faces several theoretical problems, such as the creation of a "right to pollution" and at application such as the international competition. A brief reference is made to examples of environmental taxation in third countries, the Green Fund, ETMEAP and the European Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS).  A tax reform is proposed with "green" taxes such as the introduction of carbon tax and the shift of the tax burden from labor and capital to polluting activities.

It has been estimated that climate change kills 300,000 people per year and causes annual losses worth $125 billion. Humanity’s contribution to this disaster is very unequally distributed. For example, ‘each UK birth will be responsible for 160 times more greenhouse gasemissions … than a new birth in Ethiopia’ (Guillebaud and Haynes, 2008). Inequality and environmental destruction are connected. One reason is that both affluence and poverty can be environmentally deleterious. Affluence often leads to waste...

Environmental taxes are an important fiscal instrument for a country,
as they help in the efforts towards the environmental policy goals. Taxes based on the polluter-pays principle influence the behavior of market participants by discouraging them from undertaking an environmentally detrimental activity and by attracting additional budget funds for mitigation of the consequences of this kind of activity. Environmental protection is one of the priority areas in the Republic of Lithuania, meaning that it is highly important to assess the effect of the environmental taxes on the environmental pollution in the country and improve them following the best practice of other countries.
The methodology of empirical research is based on the methods of descriptive statistics. According to the official statistics of Lithuania, majority of the environmental taxes collected and the maximum volumes of the emissions into the atmosphere are generated by the following groups of economic activities: agriculture, forestry and fishing; manufacturing; wholesale and retail trade, repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles. The study of trends in the environmental tax dynamics in Lithuania and other countries has demonstrated that Lithuania is the country which moves towards an environmental tax reform. Nonetheless, it is important to reconsider the country’s environmental tax rates and tax benefits and provide for the incentives for the groups of economic activities which are characterized by the highest GDP potential and lower environmental pollution.