VATupdate Newsletter Week 43 2022

Turning the desert green

Climate change is happening. For some time, actually. And we have an energy crisis and a lack of mineral oils. The earth is struggling to survive. Luckily, people are (finally) realising this, and in the past decades, technologies have been developed to decrease or slow down the declining of the earth, and thus help the human race to survive. But is that enough?

Solar panels, wind turbines, and even nuclear energy are all tools to reduce the use of resources as mineral oils and gas, and use real natural resources such as wind and sunlight instead. Projects around the world have started to plant trees, find different ways to reduce waste and grow more foods in a more sustainable way.

Taming the Chinese deserts: grow a forest!

Great efforts, but will it be enough? Not all projects are a success, or work-out the way they were intended. In 1978, the Chinese government drew up a plan to plant a wall of more than 66 billion trees 4,500 kilometres long to block desert expansion, shield against sand storms, and offset carbon emissions.

Unfortunately, there were quite a lot of problems. The idea makes sense: plant trees and get rid of deserts. The problem that occurred was that if the trees succeed in taking root, they could soak up large amounts of groundwater, which would be extremely problematic for arid regions like northern China.

Research of reforested areas of the loess plateau has found that the planted vegetation decreased the moisture from deeper soil levels to some degree compared to farmland.

Furthermore, planting blocks of fast-growing trees reduces the biodiversity of forested areas, creating areas that are not suitable to plants and animals normally found in forests. The lack of diversity also makes the trees more susceptible to disease, as in 2000, when one billion poplar trees in Ningxia were lost to a single disease, setting back 20 years of planting efforts.

It’s the same as with VAT. Governments try to implement new rules to collect more income, or to reduce the possibilities to commit fraud, but there are always situations that the rules did not foresee. Sometimes in the advantage of the tax payer and sometimes in their disadvantage.

Just make sure that you visit VATupdate every day, so that you are up-to-date on the latest VAT developments in your country or region of interest. And let us know if you spot any mistakes, unforeseen side-effects or opportunities. We will post them on our website and give you all the credits.

If you have any comments, questions, or ideas that you want to share with us, please send us an email at [email protected] or leave a comment under the posts of this newsletter on LinkedIn.

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