Income distribution effects of China's energy resource tax reform on urban and rural households-an analysis based on CGE model

A CGE model including 7 urban and 5 rural household income groups and 3 labor factors, i.e.agricultural labor, skilled worker and production worker, was constructed to simulate income distribution effects of China's energy resource tax reform, both on coal, crude oil and natural gas respectively and combined, on urban and rural households under low, actual and high tax rate adjustment settings. Then, the impacts of supplementary measures were simulated. It was indicated that implementing coal or natural gas resource tax reform narrowed the income gap among urban households and promoted fair income distribution, but widened the income gap among rural households and enlarged income distribution unfairness; implementing crude oil resource tax reform narrowed the income gap among both urban and rural households, which promoted fair income distribution; when energy resource tax reform on coal, crude oil and natural gas were implemented simultaneously, income distribution effects were depended on the tax rate combination of them; using energy resource tax revenue to subsidize rural households could narrow the income gap among them, which was beneficial to income distribution fairness. © 2020, Editorial Board of China Environmental Science. All right reserved.