Environmental taxes accounts

Statistics Estonia

Economic and Environmental Statistics Department

Eda Grüner

Leading Analyst

51 Tatari Str, 10134 Tallinn, Estonia

eda.gryner [at] stat.ee

3 726 259 307

10/02/2023

10/02/2023

Environmental tax revenue by tax type and by the economic activity of the payer

In Estonia there are the following environmental taxes: fuel excise duty, electricity excise duty, liquid fuel stockpiling fee, revenue from the sale of emission permits, packaging excise duty, pollution charges, water abstraction charge, fishing charge, heavy goods vehicle tax, and passenger car registration fee. Environmental taxes are grouped into four categories: energy, transport, pollution and resource taxes. Mineral resource extraction charge is not included among environmental taxes, because it is resource rent, not a tax according to the national accounts.

Estonian Classification of Economic Activities (EMTAK 2008) based on NACE Rev. 2

Statistical Classifications of Products by Activity (CPA)

All institutional sectors and economic activities

Air pollution charge – a pollution charge payable for the emission of pollutants from stationary sources into the ambient air.

Car registration fee – a state fee payable upon first registration of a passenger car in the Estonian Traffic Register.

Electricity excise duty – an excise duty imposed on the consumption of electricity.

Energy taxes – fuel excise duty, electricity excise duty, liquid fuel stockpiling fee, revenue from the sale of emission permits.

Environmental taxes – taxes whose tax base is a physical unit (or a proxy of a physical unit) of something that has a proven, specific negative impact on the environment, and which are identified in the European System of Accounts.

Fishing charge – a natural resource charge payable for the right to fish and collect aquatic plants from Estonian water bodies. There are separate charges for recreational and commercial fishing.

Fuel excise duty – an excise duty imposed on fuels produced in Estonia or imported into Estonia from another Member State outside an excise suspension arrangement.

Heavy goods vehicle tax – a tax imposed on lorries and road trains registered in the Estonian Traffic Register which have a maximum authorised weight or gross laden weight of not less than 12 tonnes.

Liquid fuel stockpiling fee – levies collected by the Estonian Oil Stockpiling Agency in accordance with the Liquid Fuel Stocks Act to finance the management of liquid fuel reserves.

Packaging excise duty – an excise duty imposed on packaging of goods placed on the market in Estonia or acquired in or imported from another Member State of the European Union.

Pollution taxes – air pollution charge, water pollution charge, waste disposal charge, packaging excise duty.

Resource taxes – water abstraction charge, fishing charge.

Revenue from the sale of emission permits – revenue earned from the sale of emission permits in the European Union's uniform Emissions Trading System (EU ETS).

Transport taxes – heavy goods vehicle tax, car registration fee.

Waste disposal charge – a pollution charge payable upon waste disposal as defined in the Waste Act (for example, depositing in landfills).

Water abstraction charge – a natural resource charge payable for the right to abstract water from a water body or aquifer pursuant to the procedure for water abstraction in the volume stipulated by law.

Water pollution charge – a pollution charge payable for the discharge of pollutants into water bodies, groundwater or soil.

Economic unit

Enterprises, households as consumers, non-residents that have paid environmental taxes

FRAME

Not applicable

Estonia as a whole

2008–…

Not applicable

Thousand euros

Year

DIRECTLY APPLICABLE LEGAL ACTS

Regulation (EU) No 691/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 July 2011 on European environmental economic accounts

Regulation (EU) No 538/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 April 2014 amending Regulation (EU) No 691/2011 on European environmental economic accounts (Text with EEA relevance)

OTHER LEGAL ACTS

Not available

OTHER AGREEMENTS

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

The dissemination of data collected for the purpose of producing official statistics is guided by the requirements provided for in § 32, § 34, § 35, § 38 of the Official Statistics Act.

The dissemination of data collected for the production of official statistics is based on the requirements laid down in §§ 34 and 35 of the Official Statistics Act.

The principles for treatment of confidential data can be found here.

Notifications about the dissemination of statistics are published in the release calendar, which is available on the website. Every year on 1 October, the release times of the statistical database, news releases, main indicators by IMF SDDS and publications for the following year are announced in the release calendar (in the case of publications – the release month).

Calendar

All users have been granted equal access to official statistics: dissemination dates of official statistics are announced in advance and no user category (incl. Eurostat, state authorities and mass media) is provided access to official statistics before other users. Official statistics are first published in the statistical database. If there is also a news release, it is published simultaneously with data in the statistical database. Official statistics are available on the website at 8:00 a.m. on the date announced in the release calendar.

Annual

Not published

Not published

Data are published in the statistical database at https://andmed.stat.ee/en/stat under the subject area “Environment / Environmental accounts / Environmental taxes accounts” in the following tables:

KK35: Environmental taxes by type and payer / economic activityx

KK36: Environmental taxes by payer / economic activity

KK37: Environmental tax revenue

The dissemination of data collected for the purpose of producing official statistics is guided by the requirements provided for in § 33, § 34, § 35, § 36, § 38 of the Official Statistics Act. Access to microdata and anonymisation of microdata are regulated by Statistics Estonia’s procedure for dissemination of confidential data for scientific purposes.

One indicator of environmental taxes is presented in Statistics Estonia's application the Tree of Truth (https://tamm.stat.ee/?lang=en).

Environmental taxes – A statistical guide, Eurostat (2013)

http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/3859598/5936129/KS-GQ-13-005-EN.PDF

The quality report is submitted to Eurostat in accordance with the relevant regulation.

To assure the quality of processes and products, Statistics Estonia applies the EFQM Excellence Model, the European Statistics Code of Practice and the Quality Assurance Framework of the European Statistical System (ESS QAF). Statistics Estonia is also guided by the requirements in § 7. “Principles and quality criteria of producing official statistics” of the Official Statistics Act.

Not applied

Ministry of the Environment

Ministry of Finance

Ministry of Justice

Tallinn City Council

Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI Tallinn)

Local government authorities

Since 1996, Statistics Estonia has conducted reputation and user satisfaction surveys. All results are available on the website of Statistics Estonia in the section User surveys.

The environmental taxes account is in compliance with the rules of the national accounts.

The accuracy of source data is monitored through comparison with other data sources.

Overall accuracy is guaranteed by adherence to methodological recommendations and adoption of best practice.

Not applicable

Not measured

First data submission in 2013 for the period 2008–2011. Starting in 2014, the data are published 630 days after the end of the reference year.

The data have been published at the time announced in the release calendar.

The data are geographically comparable due to the use of an international methodology.

The distribution of environmental taxes by economic activity in 2007 is not comparable with the environmental taxes accounts for subsequent years.

Environmental tax accounts are in compliance with the national accounts.

The outputs of the statistical activity are coherent.

The data revision policy and notification of corrections are described in the section Principles of dissemination of official statistics of the website of Statistics Estonia.

The published data may be revised if the methodology is modified, errors are discovered, new or better data become available.

Regular revisions of the 4-year reference period are carried out annually, in accordance with the national accounts methodology.

SURVEY DATA

Not used

ADMINISTRATIVE DATA

Data on environmental tax revenue are received from the Ministry of the Environment (the data on environmental fees) and from the Estonian Tax and Customs Board (data on other environmental taxes).

Taxes on production were allocated to activities based on detailed data from the Ministry of the Environment (data on commercial fishing charges), the Estonian Environment Agency, and the Republic of Estonian Transport Administration (data on fees for the first registration of vehicles).

Data on the environmental taxes of the general government sector are received from the information system of governmental accounts of the general government sector.

DATA FROM OTHER STATISTICAL ACTIVITIES

Data from statistical activities 20206 “Energy consumption and production (annual)”, 20300 “Financial statistics of enterprises (annual)”, 21303 “Government finance”, 21403 “Tourism satellite account”, 21408 “Supply and use tables” and 22303 “Foreign trade” are used.

Annual

Administrative data are received via X-Road, an FTP-server and by e-mail.

Arithmetic and qualitative controls are used in the validation process, including comparison with other data. The data are compared with the data of previous periods.

Data are aggregated to the necessary level for analysis. This includes summing of data according to classification.

When distributing environmental taxes between activities, it is important to consider the tax type according to the national accounts: taxes on production (D.29) and taxes on products (D.21). Taxes on production (e.g. pollution charges, water abstraction charge) are allocated to activities based on the economic activity of direct tax payers, but in case of taxes on products the allocation scheme is more complex. Excise duties (e.g. fuel excise duty, electricity excise duty) are the primary taxes on products and are allocated to activities according to the consumption of taxed products. Fuel excise duty is distributed between activities according to fuel consumption; and electricity excise duty is allocated according to the consumption of electricity. Environmental tax accounts are revised after the completion of supply and use tables.

Not applied

Not available