اصلاح مالیاتی زیست محیطی در دانمارک: تاریخ و مقبولیت اجتماعی

Based on the history and the results of the PETRAS project the article will describe some of the main impediments for further development of environmental tax and ETR policies in Denmark. The article concludes that the main reason why the ETR policy has been met with such apparently low social acceptability in Denmark is that the “green” of the “green” tax reform has been somewhat oversold. On this basis it recommends the pursuit of a courageous government strategy of, openly and repeatedly, stressing the revenue purposes of environmentally related taxes over the environmental purposes in an effort to redirect public discussions towards relevant issues like the pros and cons of environmentally related taxation compared with other types of taxation and the connection between the overall tax burden and demands for government spending. Such a bold government “confession” to the obvious revenue purposes of the environmentally related taxes could make them, if not popular, then at least a bit more acceptable to businesses and the general public.