에너지부문의 환경세 도입이 환경 및 경제에 미치는 영향

Abstract

In recent years, advanced countries have been improving environmental quality by introducing environmental taxes into the energy sector. Using tax revenues, the developed nations are also contributing to the alleviation of economic burden such as unemployment, regressive income redistribution, etc. Meanwhile, Korea has not yet seen such a progress in the reduction of pollutants, and the preparation and settlement of a general foundation by the adoption of environmental taxes. Although the first and second energy tax reforms in Korea have gained environmental quality wider popularity, as the mere introduction of environmental taxes is not satisfactory, the second energy tax reform still needs enhancement. Recognizing the importance of environmental taxes, this study evaluates current energy price systems, devices to impose environmental taxes and methods to make efficient use of tax revenues. The scope of analytical energy records transportable energies such as volatile oil, light oil and LPG and non-transportation energies such as crude petroleum, kerosene etc. As a practical energy price system, this study considers the three different energy price system scenarios: Scenario I to consider only the social cost accompanied by the current use of energy, Scenario II to use an average of OECD national energy prices and taxes, and Scenario III, a compromise plan proposed in this paper, to reflect industrial competitiveness and future emission standards. In analyzing the most appropriate scenario in Korea, an energy demand effect using ARDL Model and an income distribution effect using Kakwani index were taken into account, and results appear to be in favour of Scenario III expecting 3 trillion Won of the environmental social cost in a short term and 8 trillion won in a long term. The tax revenue calculation is presumed to collect 13 trillion Won and 9 hundred billions Won which appeared to be 2 hundred billions Won higher than the results of BAU tax revenue calculation. This research has the following policy implications. First of all, assuming that all or a part of the increased tax revenues of the chosen Scenario III is recycled in accordance with the energy use, the progressive rate of tax appears to be strengthened. As well, when the recycling rate gets higher, the progressive rate of tax gets even higher. It suggests that the implementation of Scenario III could improve the redistribution of income and provide revenue-neutral environmental tax. Secondly, this research suggests the adoption of ’traffic environmental tax’ as a method to strengthen the environmental aspect of traffic tax, when the environmental tax imposition period ends in 2006. When ’traffic environmental tax’ is initiated, a part of tax revenues should be included to environment improvement special accounts so that it could be invested into the environmental improvement plans including a metropolitan air quality improvement plan. The rest of tax revenues could be used for the subsidies and refunds in the public transportation and industrial sector. Lastly, by analyzing foreign cases, this study concludes that the collected tax revenues should be used for refunds as well as a reduction and assistance in environmental tax.