Does Adopting Environmental Tax Contribute to Achieving Sustainable Development in Lebanon? A Survey of Academics and LCPAs

Abstract

For a long time, Lebanon has suffered from pollution, and its successive governments have tried to solve it since. The regulations set to deal with pollution are neither enough nor effective, since, after the economic crisis, the fines that were set have no significant value nowadays. Thus, there is need for a stricter and more intense procedures than the fines. Therefore, environmental taxes are an urgent need to limit damages to the environment. This is what had the researchers think about the main theme of the study at hand that is summarized in the question: Does adopting environmental tax contribute to achieving sustainable development in Lebanon? The researchers used the quantitative approach, constructed a questionnaire based on the five-point Likert-style and distributed it to a sample of university professors and Lebanese Certified Public Accountants (LCPAs). The sample comprised 200 academics and 250 LCPAs since they are engaged in taxation practices and distributed the questionnaire among them, 180 academics and 220 LCPAs responded and all were valid for testing and analysis. The study rendered some essential findings, most importantly that the sample agrees that adopting environmental tax contributes to achieving sustainable development in Lebanon. In addition, the results exposed that there are many hindrances facing adopting environmental tax in Lebanon. Moreover, there was no statistically significant difference among the responses of the sample members in that adopting tax on pollution contributes to achieving sustainable development due to the job title. However, there was a statistically significant difference among the responses of the sample in that LCPAs perceive the hindrances to adopting environmental tax in Lebanon to be greater compared to University Professors.