Green tax not growth burden

A draft of China's first environmental protection tax law, reviewed by the top legislature on Tuesday, is poised to levy taxes on four taxable types of pollution - airborne and water pollutants, solid waste and noise - while excluding household waste and such mobile pollution sources as vehicles from the tax.

According to the draft, the current standards for pollutant discharge fees are set at the lower range. It has long been a social consensus that the country should exert more rigid and binding constraints on pollution and give tax a bigger role to play in environmental protection.

As early as 1979, China began to impose fees on those companies discharging pollutants and the standards have been gradually raised.