The effects of taxpayer’s environmental morale on the willingness to pay environmental tax for sustainable environment

This study examines the association between environmental morale and taxpayer’s willingness to pay environmental tax for the sustainable environment and investigate whether the environmental morale of these taxpayers increases their degree of willingness to pay environmental tax rather than their degree of willingness to pay ordinary tax in China, Japan and Korea. This study finds a positive relationship among environmental morale and tax morale (willingness to pay tax) measures. These findings are mostly consistent with separate country-level evidences from surveys on China, Japan and Korea. However, there are some differences among the countries: Only Chinese respondents perceive that taxes can be raised if the proceeds are used to prevent environmental pollution and they would sacrifice part of their income for the environments. This suggests that the environmental morale of Chinese taxpayers toward a concrete environmental field (i.e., water quality, sewage and sanitation) has a positive influence on their willingness to pay environmental tax for the sustainable environment.