The impact of resource tax reform on China's coal industry

Contributing to approximately two-thirds of primary energy consumption, coal usage is the focus of China's energy policies. To regulate the resource taxation system and reduce the burden of coal enterprises, the Chinese government launched a reform of its resource tax system in 2014 for coal, introducing the ad valorem system to replace the volume-based system that had been in place for the preceding thirty years. To assess the impact of the tax reform, this paper constructs two-stage dynamic game models by taking the coal and coal-fired power industries as the players. The market situations of shortage and oversupply are investigated separately. Empirical data are collected to estimate the model parameters for numerical simulations. The model results suggest that the tax reform will reduce both coal prices and the coal industry profitability if the tax levied on each ton of coal is maintained at the same level as before the reform, regardless of whether the market is in a shortage or an oversupply situation. However, the increased buyer's power will amplify the effect of the tax reform. The numerical simulations also provide an estimation of the tax rate of the ad valorem system that maintains the profit of the coal industry. Considering the demand and supply situations in China's coal market, policy recommendations are provided to guide further reform of China's resource tax system.