Project Manager
Rendahl, PernillaProject manager
University of Gothenburg School of Business, Economics and LawAmount granted
2 799 137 SEKYear
2015
Environmental taxes come in different forms, they can be both direct and indirect, where direct taxes are imposed on producers who use environmentally hazardous substances in their production, while indirect taxes are imposed on what has already been produced, at the point of sale. The purpose of an indirect charge is to reduce the consumption of products containing environmentally harmful substances. In Sweden, a proposal was made in spring 2015 to introduce a new indirect chemical tax, i.e. a tax on products containing specified chemicals such as flame retardants. Several referral bodies have criticized the inquiry's proposal, among other things because the tax would be costly to administer and provide a relatively low taxation, i.e. the effectiveness of the tax can be discussed as the proposal is designed. This project approaches the taxation of chemicals not from the perspective of the Swedish chemical tax inquiry's proposal, but from the perspective of designing a Progressive Pollution Tax (PPT) with the aim of reducing the use of chemicals with a negative environmental impact, especially when several chemicals are used and so-called combination effects arise. The impact of EU state aid rules on the design of such a tax is considered in particular. How circumvention of national excise taxes can be counteracted by regional or international coordination of environmental taxes is also analyzed in a subproject. The basis for the latter study is a Nordic comparison.