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Environmental taxes

How taxes can be used in regulation.

Taxes can be used effectively with other tools to create a balanced policy package which takes account of economic as well as environmental objectives.

Taxation can be an alternative or complement to conventional regulatory instruments. It can be a relatively simple way of sending broad price signals aimed at achieving fairly widespread changes in behaviour, as with the Landfill Tax or Climate Change Levy

They can be designed to be revenue-neutral for the government; for example revenues can be recycled to support specific environmental objectives such as investment in cleaner technologies, or to reward better performers.