Environmental taxes in developed countries: the bet of colombian legislation

Abstract

This article proposes to compare the Colombian tax system against countries that involve environmental taxes at the tax level, seeking to provide the most efficient and appropriate regulation for our country. Apart from the compensation and compensatory rates created in 1993 and the environmental surcharge in addition to the property tax, our country began to implement the “national consumption tax on plastic bags” and the “national carbon tax” in response to the study on the effectiveness of the taxes, fees, contributions and other existing charges for the preservation and protection of the environment requested by law 1607 of 2012. A new era of extrafiscalidad of tribute in the current Colombian tax system begins, so that both taxes are created to discourage some pattern of consumption, thus, the carbon tax seeks to reduce the use of fossil fuels and encourage technological improvements for more efficient use, and the tax on plastic bags was created with the purpose of changing the behavior of the citizen by not asking for plastic bags in supermarkets, in search of the protection of the environment.

The Colombian tax system has a series of fiscal instruments focused on the care of the environment, the regulations are scattered and present difficulties in shaping an environmental tax system. The Latin American tax systems contain some environmental tributary figures but the complexity and ineffectiveness of these measures are evidenced, which have been complemented by sanctioning norms to the polluting activities. In Colombia, an evaluation of the economic model and the impact on income generating activities and their effect on the care and preservation of the environment must be carried out