On September 6th, 2021, the WeChat official account of Ministry of Ecology and Environment released an article entitled “Typical Cases: Illegal Landfills in the Name of Soil Improvement Serious Lack of Supervision of Sludge Disposal in Suining, Sichuan”[1], which drew the attention of PECC.

Since 2020, PECC has released five green tax reports, of which the fourth report focuses on the enjoyment of tax preferences for enterprises that comprehensively utilize resources. Click for details: Research Report of Green Taxation (4) Does the Environmental Performance of Enterprises that Comprehensively Utilize Resources Affect Tax Preferences?

By checking the relevant information on the official website of the Sichuan Provincial Taxation Bureau[2], we found that Suining Xinjingyuan Bio-Environmental Protection Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Xinjingyuan Environmental Protection Company) has enjoyed the policy of comprehensive utilization of resources and immediate refund for three consecutive years (2018-2020).

The article disclosed that since 2014, Xinjingyuan Environmental Protection Company has successively received 223,300 tons of sludge from 42 sewage treatment plants in Suining, Guang’an, Nanchong, Neijiang and other places in Sichuan Province, with a total disposal fee of 35.21 million yuan, of which 136,100 tons have been received since 2019, with acquisition and disposal cost of 21.386 million yuan. During the period, the company directly dumped or buried 105,100 tons of sludge in the leased land under the guise of “soil improvement” without taking any harmless measures. In March 2017, the company illegally received and buried 27,400 tons of industrial sludge from Guang’an Beijing Enterprises Water Group Limited without the ability to dispose of industrial sludge. Worse still, at the end of 2014, the company illegally received about 300 tons of natural gas desulfurization gypsum from Suining Saisco Company, and buried 230 tons of it in the No. 4 plot (about 3.5 acres) in the leased land. 510 tons of gray-white solid mixture were formed at the disposal, which was identified as hazardous waste and suspected of environmental pollution crimes...

Article 108, Article 112 (3) and (10) and Article 114 of the “Law of the People’s Republic of China on the Prevention and Control of Environmental Pollution by Solid Waste” clearly state that:

The behavior of Xinjingyuan Environmental Protection Company has seriously violated the relevant provisions of the solid waste law and has caused serious damage to the environment.

Xinjingyuan Environmental Protection Company, as an “environmental protection” company, really does not live up to its name. The surrounding people have a strong reaction to the illegal problem of Xinjingyuan Environmental Protection Company. Since 2015, Xinjingyuan Environmental Protection Company has been complained by the masses 14 times for illegal dumping of landfill sludge...

As a green tax, value-added tax is a tax used to encourage enterprises to use resources sparingly and intensively, and to promote green production and consumption. Why does this company become the polluter of the environment? The behavior of polluting the environment while enjoying tax preferences will lead to the ineffectiveness of green tax on environmental protection.