Developing a Model to Implement Environmental Taxes

Today, due to industrialization and increasing environmental pollution, one of the main concerns of governments and environmental protection agencies is controlling and reducing pollutants. This means paying attention to earning profit organizations should not without paying attention to their environmental performance. As a deterrent policy, environmental taxes play an essential role in regulating greenhouse gas concentrations and have been in place to reduce environmental damage and pay more attention to the environment. Therefore, paying attention to fulfilling environmental responsibility obligations while earning profit has become more and more necessary; A necessity that is very important in achieving sustainable development goals. however, developing countries, such as Iran, do not pay much attention to the benefits of this policy due to a lack of awareness and implementation problems. Therefore, this study is supposed to develop a model to implement environmental taxes. 

This study uses a combined quantitative-qualitative method. In the first stage, 22 factors affecting the implementation of environmental taxes were identified from extant research and classified into 6 dimensions. These dimensions include the dimension of damage reduction, social dimension, environmental dimension, legal dimension, organizational dimension, and economic dimension. 5 academic experts approved these factors and their categories. The research method at this stage is the descriptive survey, and the data collection tool was a researcher-made questionnaire based on a five-point likert scale, the reliability of which was 94.6% based on Cronbach's alpha. The sample size of this step was 196 using Cochran's formula. In the second stage of the research, the purposeful expert selection method was used to examine the relationships between the dimensions confirmed in the previous stage. For this purpose, the Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) questionnaire was designed and provided to university professors and research experts who had valuable information about this field. Finally, using ISM, a model for implementing environmental taxes was created. 

In the first stage, 6 dimensions and 22 factors affecting the implementation of environmental taxes were approved by 198 experts. The experts of the first stage included senior managers and experts of the finance and tax departments of Tehran, Kerman, and Shiraz provinces. As a result of the sign test, considering that the significance level of the test for all factors and dimensions was 0.000, which is less than 0.05, it can be concluded that all the factors and their dimensions have a significant impact on the implementation of environmental taxes. The second stage (ISM method) was performed using the opinions of 24 university professors and research experts, and the results showed that among the 6 dimensions, social and environmental dimensions are independent variables and the main pillars of the implementation of the environmental taxes model, and then the legal dimension is significant. The organizational dimension, economic dimension, and dimension of damage reduction are placed in the next levels, respectively. The analysis of MICMAC showed that organizational, economic, and damage reduction dimensions are more influenced by other dimensions and from a systemic perspective, they are among the dependent dimensions in the model. In other words, these dimensions are the output of interactions between other dimensions. Three social, environmental, and legal dimensions are included in the independent or influencing variables in the model. None of the dimensions are present in the link part, and the autonomous part is also free of variables. 

Modeling the factors affecting the implementation of environmental taxes can help governments in implementing this policy, which can increase the economic benefits of governments in addition to controlling environmental pollution. Findings indicate that a step-by-step consideration of these dimensions is the key solution to the implementation of the environmental taxes model. In this way, governments can both achieve better economic performance and prevent environmental damage. This study publishes results that demonstrate the effectiveness of environmental taxation in supporting sustainability and achieving sustainable performance while addressing economic issues.