Editor's Note: Coal is the basic energy supply in core areas such as electric power, industrial production and heating. Although China is continuing to promote the diversified transformation of energy structure and green and low-carbon development, coal is still the core energy support for the stable operation of the above industries in the current energy system. In order to guide enterprises to practice the concept of clean production, standardize the disposal of solid waste and promote the recycling of resources, the Environmental Protection Tax Law clearly includes pollutants generated in the process of coal utilization, such as coal gangue and fly ash, into the scope of taxation, and through the adjustment of tax leverage, enterprises can reduce pollutant emissions, improve the efficiency of resource utilization, and help realize the coordinated development of energy consumption and ecological environmental protection. This paper focuses on the hot issues of environmental protection tax of coal-using enterprises, analyzes the common tax-related risks of coal-using enterprises under the trend of tax regulation by numbers, and puts forward some tax compliance suggestions for readers' reference.

I. Coal-using enterprises involve a number of taxable pollutants in environmental protection taxes.

Taxable pollutants produced by coal-using enterprises cover a wide range, including solid wastes such as fly ash and slag, air pollutants such as sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, and water pollutants. According to the provisions of Article 11 of the Environmental Protection Tax Law, the taxable amount of the above-mentioned taxable pollutants is related to emissions, and the determination of pollutant emissions is highly dependent on professional monitoring data.

Article 10 of the Environmental Protection Tax Law stipulates that "the discharge of taxable air pollutants, water pollutants and solid wastes and the decibel number of noise shall be calculated according to the following methods and order: (1) If taxpayers install and use automatic monitoring equipment for pollutants that meet the national regulations and monitoring norms, it shall be calculated according to the automatic monitoring data of pollutants; (2) If the taxpayer fails to install and use automatic monitoring equipment for pollutants, it shall be calculated according to the monitoring data issued by the monitoring institution that conforms to the relevant state regulations and monitoring norms; (3) If the monitoring conditions are not met due to various types of pollutants discharged, it shall be calculated according to the pollutant discharge coefficient and material balance method stipulated by the competent department of ecological environment of the State Council; (four) can not be calculated in accordance with the methods specified in items 1 to 3 of this article, according to the sampling calculation method specified by the competent department of ecological environment of the people's governments of provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government ". In addition, the Environmental Protection Tax Law also clarifies that the tax department and the competent department of ecological environment should establish a tax-related information sharing platform and work coordination mechanism, and the competent department of ecological environment should regularly submit environmental protection-related information such as pollutant discharge permit, pollutant discharge data, environmental violations and administrative penalties to the tax authorities. Under this collaborative mechanism, the tax authorities can identify the compliance risk of environmental protection tax by comparing the information declared by taxpayers with the information collected by the ecological and environmental departments.

II. Big data helps tax supervision, and the environmental tax risk of coal-using enterprises is high

In recent years, the tax authorities have carried out the "strong foundation project" of tax collection and management under the condition of digital transformation, and promoted tax administration according to law, tax administration by numbers and strict tax administration. In the aspect of tax management by numbers, in view of the complexity of environmental tax specialty and the accuracy of reporting data, many tax authorities use big data analysis and other technical means to realize collaborative tax management with multiple departments, accurately identify the risks of environmental tax reporting and payment, and recover huge taxes:

(1) Establish a model to screen the doubtful points of solid waste discharge, recover environmental protection tax and impose a late payment fee of nearly 8 million yuan.

In order to solve the problem that the quantity of solid waste pollution and discharge declared by some coal-using enterprises is inaccurate, the local tax department developed a "back calculation model of production and discharge": firstly, the information about the year-on-year change of coal purchase, electricity consumption, sales volume and heating area of enterprises was collected, which was defined as "year-on-year change factor", and then "difference factors" such as heating technology, combustion furnace type and coal quality were considered to calculate the enterprise's production and discharge, and compared with the enterprise's "solid waste" By drawing the data fluctuation curve over the years, the local tax authorities found that the production and discharge volume of an enterprise did not match the "year-on-year change factor". After verification and guidance, the enterprise paid the environmental protection tax and late payment fee of 7.88 million yuan.

(2) The report on the comprehensive utilization of solid waste is false, and the enterprise illegally applies preferential treatment, and the tax and late payment fee are recovered by more than 6.3 million yuan.

Recently, through the analysis of tax big data, the tax authorities in one place found that enterprises have doubts about applying preferential policies for comprehensive utilization in violation of regulations. The tax authorities found that the taxable rate of environmental protection tax of a state-owned heating company was low over the years. After verification, the main reason was that it enjoyed the preferential policy of tax reduction and exemption for comprehensive utilization of solid waste. However, after field investigation, it was found that the downstream company provided false reports and the solid waste of the enterprise was not comprehensively utilized. The heating company finally paid the environmental protection tax and late payment fee of 6.343 million yuan.

(3) omission of atmospheric pollutants, overdue taxes and fines of more than 5.4 million yuan.

According to the provisions of the Environmental Protection Tax Law, "the taxable air pollutants at each discharge port or without discharge port shall be sorted in descending order according to the pollution equivalent number, and the environmental protection tax shall be levied on the first three pollutants". When checking an electric power and thermal production enterprise, the local tax authorities found that the Discharge Permit of the enterprise clearly stated that its discharge port covered eight air pollutants such as "mercury and its compounds", but there was no trace of "mercury and its compounds" in the actual declaration data. After counseling and self-examination, the enterprise confirmed the omission, paid back the tax of 3.526 million yuan and delayed payment of 1.892 million yuan.

III. Qualified solid waste sales behavior should be identified as disposal and comprehensive utilization.

Because solid wastes such as slag and fly ash have the value of reuse, for example, fly ash can be used to make building materials such as cement, and most coal-using enterprises do not have the facilities and conditions for comprehensive utilization, in practice, coal-using enterprises often treat the solid wastes produced by selling, which leads to disputes: Does the sale of solid wastes belong to disposal and comprehensive utilization? Can the sold solid waste be eliminated from the output?

Before solving the above disputes, it is necessary to return to the nature of behavior regulated by environmental protection tax. According to the provisions of the Environmental Protection Tax Law, enterprises, institutions and other producers and operators who directly discharge taxable pollutants into the environment in China's territory and other sea areas under their jurisdiction are taxpayers of environmental protection tax, and they should pay environmental protection tax in accordance with the provisions of this Law, that is, environmental protection tax mainly regulates the behavior of directly discharging pollutants into the environment and destroying the ecological environment. In terms of solid waste, the Environmental Protection Tax Law further stipulates that "storing or disposing of solid waste in facilities and places that meet national and local environmental protection standards" does not belong to discharging pollutants into the environment and does not belong to the taxation scope of environmental protection tax; In order to encourage the comprehensive utilization of solid waste, Article 12 of the Environmental Protection Tax Law stipulates that "the solid waste comprehensively utilized by taxpayers meets the national and local environmental protection standards" is temporarily exempted from environmental protection tax, that is, through the positive incentive mechanism of "multi-discharge and multi-payment, less discharge and less payment, no discharge and no payment", enterprises can reduce emissions and improve the comprehensive utilization level, and the qualified solid waste storage, disposal and comprehensive utilization can be excluded from the output. Environmental protection tax shall be levied on the balance (discharge amount), that is, the taxable amount of solid waste = discharge amount of solid waste * specific applicable tax amount, where discharge amount = production amount-storage amount-disposal amount-comprehensive utilization amount.

Therefore, according to the current regulations, what can be excluded from the output of solid waste includes storage capacity, disposal capacity and comprehensive utilization capacity. It is not clear whether the treatment of solid waste generated by transaction forms such as "sales" and "exchange" in practice can be exempted or reduced. Then, can the sales behavior of solid waste be classified as disposal or comprehensive utilization? The Environmental Protection Tax Law does not define "disposal" and "comprehensive utilization". According to the provisions of the Law on the Prevention and Control of Environmental Pollution by Solid Waste, disposal refers to "the activity of burning solid waste and changing its physical, chemical and biological characteristics by other means to reduce the amount of generated solid waste, reduce its volume, reduce or eliminate its dangerous components, or finally place solid waste in a landfill that meets the requirements of environmental protection regulations. According to the Notice of the Ministry of Finance, the State Administration of Taxation and the Ministry of Ecology and Environment on Issues Related to Environmental Protection Tax (Cai Shui [2018] No.23), "If taxpayers transfer taxable solid waste to other units and individuals for storage, disposal or comprehensive utilization according to law, the transferred amount of solid waste shall be included in the storage, disposal or comprehensive utilization of taxable solid waste in the current period", therefore, The behavior of coal enterprises entrusting downstream enterprises with the disposal and comprehensive utilization of solid waste should be "transferred to other units and individuals for disposal and comprehensive utilization", and those that meet the conditions should be allowed to be included in the disposal or comprehensive utilization, and excluded from the output.

At the level of comprehensive utilization, tax authorities generally require enterprises to provide comprehensive utilization evaluation reports as tax reduction and exemption materials. However, for the sale behavior, coal-using enterprises are not the main body of comprehensive utilization, and they have no right to evaluate the comprehensive utilization behavior of downstream enterprises, so they usually cannot obtain the evaluation reports. In this regard, we believe that pollution prevention measures have been taken in the process of production, collection, storage and transportation of solid waste when coal-using enterprises meet the relevant sewage discharge requirements, and the production, disposal and comprehensive utilization are truthfully recorded and submitted with tax information that can prove the flow and quantity of solid waste. And verify the principal qualification and technical ability of the trustee, sign a sales or entrusted disposal contract according to law, and stipulate pollution prevention requirements in the contract, and the comprehensive utilization products meet the requirements, it shall be deemed that the coal-using enterprise has fulfilled its obligation of pollution prevention, and the sales behavior of the coal-using enterprise shall be deemed to have completed the disposal and comprehensive utilization, and it is allowed not to levy or reduce environmental taxes.

IV. Summary

Coal-using enterprises often involve the discharge of many kinds of taxable pollutants. Therefore, we should strengthen the awareness of tax compliance, improve the compliance system of environmental protection tax, strengthen the communication between industry and finance, pay attention to the definition of discharge, disposal and utilization in the field of tax law, and avoid problems such as unpaid or underpaid taxes due to improper understanding of policies, resulting in overdue taxes and additional late fees. For the direct sale of solid waste, before the business, we should pay attention to the implementation caliber and identification material requirements of local tax authorities for "disposal" and "comprehensive utilization", pay attention to the relevant qualifications of downstream enterprises, entrust enterprises that meet the standards for disposal, and clearly stipulate in the purchase and sale contract that downstream and comprehensive utilization enterprises must meet the requirements of pollution prevention and control. In addition, enterprises should also establish and improve the responsibility system for the prevention and control of environmental pollution in the whole process of solid waste generation, collection, storage, transportation, utilization and disposal in accordance with the Law on the Prevention and Control of Environmental Pollution by Solid Waste, establish a solid waste management ledger, and truthfully record the types, quantity, flow direction, storage, utilization and disposal of solid waste, so as to realize traceability and inquiry of solid waste.