This article aims at identifying the main tendencies in changing the taxation process of vehicle owners concerning harmful emissions produced by vehicles. Theoretical framework: According to the statistical data of international ecological companies, the EU countries have to reduce emissions from transport by 90% by 2050. Accordingly, by this period, the EU countries plan to increase the use of zero-emission vehicles significantly. Just a few decades ago, no fiscal instruments were in place to force consumers to pay attention to the environmental friendliness of cars. When conducting the research, the authors used the analytical and bibliographic method to study the scientific literature on vehicle owners’ taxation regarding harmful substances emissions, as well as induction, deduction, analysis, information synthesis, systemic and structural, comparative, logical and linguistic methods, abstraction, idealization for data study and processing, and a questionnaire survey conducted by the authors of the study online to practically clarify the most critical issues related to the taxation of harmful substances emissions caused by vehicles. Today, EU countries have a variety of tax methods that influence consumer behavior when choosing a vehicle based on its environmental friendliness, as it causes a quarter of all EU emissions. More than 70 % of these are generated by cars. For this reason, it is now time to reform the vehicle taxation system, taking into account the emission level they produce. The research results identified the leading, most important theoretical aspects of the vehicle owners’ taxation issue related to harmful emissions. Also, the authors

studied the opinion of scientists and executives of regional bodies of the State Tax Service on the critical aspects of this issue. Road, rail, and water transport remain the top environmental pollutants today. 

Highlights

• This article aims at identifying the main tendencies in changing the taxation process of vehicle owners concerning harmful emissions produced by vehicles. The research results identified the leading, most important theoretical aspects of the vehicle owners’ taxation issue related to harmful emissions. Also, the authors studied the opinion of scientists and executives of regional bodies of the State Tax Service on the critical aspects of this issue.