ENVIRONMENTAL TAXES: PROCEDURE FOR TAXATION AND DISCLOSURE IN ACCOUNTING SYSTEM
Authors: PLAKHTII Tetiana , DRACHUK Vitalina 
Published: February 2020

The tax system of any country is formed primarily in order to fulfil the fiscal function, which is aimed at filling the state budget. However, the problem of environmental pollution has risen in the world; therefore, this issue may be solved at the expense of different levers of the state influence at the level of the national, regional and local government. This process can be assisted through the intensification of the control function of such kind of tax payments as environmental tax.

To control the activities of enterprises in the part of economic operations that cause environmental pollution through the construction of high quality information base, it is necessary to study the approaches established by the system of environmental taxation and reflection of such operations in the accounting.

Recording of transactions on the accounting of the environmental tax settlements is carried out using the Settlement of tax commitments on the environmental tax, which is charged for emissions into the air of pollutants by stationary sources of pollution and Settlement of tax commitments on the environmental tax, which is charged for the placement of waste in the places or objects designated for these purposes. Based on the information given in the above-mentioned documents, the Tax Declaration of Environmental Tax is drawn up.

These documents are constituents of tax reporting on the environmental tax, which show generalized information over the reporting period, i.e. a quarter. Currently, businesses want to have information that has been formed in time during a rather short time period in order to make operational and tactical decisions. We consider that it is necessary to meet the requirements of users through the formation and submitting accounting information in the form of auxiliary information on the charging of the environmental tax taking into account the specific approaches to taxation for one or another type of the environmental pollution. Such accounting information can be grouped at the request of users for certain time period, e.g. a week, a month, etc.

Real environmental commitments can be reflected in the accounting system of the business entity in the context of analytical accounts, which are opened in the account 64 “Settlements of taxes and payments” and sub-account 641.5 “Settlements of the environmental tax”. The loan of this subaccount reflects the charge of the environmental tax, and its transfer to the budget – for a loan. We propose to carry out analytical accounting of settlements for environmental taxes by the types of payments (basic payment, fines, penalties) with the allocation of analytical accounts, i.e. the tax on actual emissions into the atmospheric air of pollutants by stationary sources of pollution; tax on actual volumes of emissions; tax on actual waste disposal.

Accounting performed in the context of the proposed analytics will enable to form information on environmental commitments in terms of tax payments in order to provide effective management of the environmental activities of the enterprise.

According to the Methodical recommendations on management reporting, one of the areas in which this form of report is being developed is the disclosure of environmental aspects. Proposals for the improvement of the procedure of documenting operations for charging commitments to the budget, as a result of meeting the requirements of environmental taxation in the form of auxiliary information and reflection in the accounting system of accounts, will improve organization of the accounting process during its practical application. This will enable not only to resolve the accounting issue on the formation of qualitative, reliable and unbiased information by its characteristics of information for reporting, but also to strengthen control over compliance with the environmental legislation and preservation of the environment. The accounting information formed by this method way will serve as an information base, in particular, to make the management report.