The System of Tax Incentives for the Circular Economy (On the Example of a Non-Recycled Plastic Tax)

Abstract

The problem of environmental protection arose in the middle of the 20th century and remains relevant to this day. Plastic, being an important material in almost all branches of industrial production, causes irreparable damage to nature, animals, and human beings. Many states have decided to start combating environmental pollution with plastic by developing various measures, starting with increasing the level of environmental literacy of the population and introducing mandatory garbage sorting, ending with the introduction of taxation of plastic waste. In this article, the authors reviewed recent legislative initiated by Western countries aimed at taxation of non-recyclable plastic, studied the features of such taxation mechanisms, and also identified imperfections in current versions of the legislation. In particular, the authors came to the following conclusions: the mechanism of the non-recyclable plastic tax in the EU is not perfect and requires additional improvements in terms of determining the elements of the tax; the predicted amounts of the non-recyclable plastic tax collection are relatively small in comparison with the total budget revenues of the EU; the actual impact of the introduced tax on the increase in the level of plastic recycling has not been proven, and the existing mechanisms of its work, preliminary studies and assessments indicate that its main goal is the growth of recycling materials to reduce disposable waste - probably will not be achieved in the current version of the law and taking into account the speed of adoption and implementation of this law on the territory of the EU. The identified problems require additional study based on successful examples of similar taxes introduced in other countries, e.g., in California (the USA).