Incentive Effect and Optimization Path of Environmental Tax on Wastewater Treatment in the Papermaking Industry

This article takes China's papermaking industry as the research object, analyzes the current status of wastewater treatment and the implementation characteristics of environmental protection tax, evaluates the incentive effect of environmental protection tax, points out existing problems, and proposes optimization paths. The papermaking industry is a high water-consuming and high-polluting industry. Since the implementation of the environmental protection tax in 2018, the industry has achieved significant emission reduction results, promoted the upgrading of wastewater treatment technology, and reshaped the pattern of the papermaking industry. However, there are still problems such as insufficient adaptability of the environmental protection tax to green development practices, insufficient coordination of management and administration, and lack of policy support for small and medium-sized enterprises. In the future, it is necessary to support green transformation through environmental protection taxes, strengthen supervision, monitoring and management, and combine green finance to promote the sustainable development of the industry.