Labour’s tax relief upstages Høyre

On the very day that Norway’s Conservative Party (Høyre) was wrapping up its national meeting and rallying its troops to seize government power, Labour Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and his finance minister, Sigbjørn Johnsen, were revving up their own power themselves. They gleefully launched a so-called economic “growth package” aimed at boosting private business through [...]

Norway strikes tax deal with US

On the very day that’s the deadline for most US citizens to file their annual tax returns, April 15, Norway’s finance minister and the US’ ambassador to Norway signed a formal agreement to share financial information related to their citizens’ tax obligations. The deal means Norwegian tax authorities can get help tracking down any hidden [...]

Finance minister closes tax loophole

Finance Minister Sigbjørn Johnsen said Monday that the government was poised to shut a tax loophole that’s been exploited by multinational companies doing business in Norway. Now the government intends to limit the possibilities they have to move profits among various units to avoid tax liability. Through use of creative accounting and exploiting differences in [...]

Tax forms released to 3.9 million

In what’s long been a rite of spring, the Norwegian tax authority Skatteetaten released the bulk of its tax returns for 2012 on Tuesday to 3.9 million workers, retirees and small business owners in Norway. Along with them came the annual warnings that taxpayers still need to monitor their returns, even though they’re largely filled [...]

Woman held in suspected tax scam

Police in the Oslo area say they’re facing one of their biggest tax evasion cases ever, after a 36-year-old woman was arrested and jailed earlier this month. Investigators believe she helped as many as 2,000 people living all over the country, most of them with immigrant background, evade taxes amounting to at least NOK 40 [...]

Høyre backs big fortune tax cuts

With the campaign well underway towards national elections later this year, Norway’s leading opposition party Høyre (The  Conservatives Party) has proposed making large cuts in the country’s unpopular fortune tax (formueskatt). The proposal was met with resistance, however, even from all of Høyre’s potential coalition partners, who say the cuts will only benefit the wealthiest [...]

Norwegians boost their savings

Norwegians have become better at saving more of their paychecks since the finance crisis hit in 2008. Household debt levels remain high, but Norwegians also now have an average of NOK 200,000 (around USD 35,000) in the bank, according to a new survey from the country’s biggest bank, DNB. That’s higher than in earlier years, when [...]

Multinational firms avoid paying tax

Many multinational corporations operating in Norway have been avoiding paying taxes by using creative accounting and loopholes in the tax system. Norwegian politicians are calling for tighter rules and a revision of tax laws to plug the holes. They’re calling such behaviour by foreign companies “theft,” after new data showed just how many billions of [...]

State oil company keen to avoid taxes

Statoil, Norway’s state-controlled oil company, was threatening this week to move some of its operations out of Norway if the government goes through with new tax regulations that would leave Statoil with a much bigger tax bill. Statoil executives aren’t at all happy with the government’s proposed new rules for taxing oil operations abroad. The [...]

Norwegian tax officials ally themselves with Panama

Norwegians who may have stashed funds in Panama, to avoid taxes in Norway, suddenly face an uncertain future after news this week that authorities in both countries were agreeing to exchange financial information. The Norwegian authorities’ goal is to uncover money they claim should be subject to tax in Norway. The Norwegian authorities have been [...]

Tax lists released but harder to access

State tax authorities released their lists on Friday showing what all residents of Norway declared in terms of income and net worth, plus taxes owed, but made it more difficult this year for members of the public to snoop through them. The lists still revealed who’s considered the country’s wealthiest. That distinction went this year [...]

Artist Odd Nerdrum fights back

UPDATED: Norway’s most famous contemporary artist, Odd Nerdrum, was back in an Oslo courtroom on Monday, armed with new documentation in a case that he has brought against Norwegian tax authorities.  The documentation was dug up by newspaper Dagbladet, which claims it wasn’t included in the state’s own tax evasion case against the artist earlier [...]

High housing prices, low property tax

Housing prices rose again in Norway last month, to a level that now even worries real estate brokers. Homeowners and buyers, though, enjoy among the lowest property taxes in the world and politicians seem reluctant to raise or even impose them any time soon. Norway is generally known as a high-tax country, with punitive taxes [...]

Guest workers pay off in Norway

The Norwegian state profits from guest workers who pay considerably more in taxes than what they claim in benefits, according to recent research by state statistics bureau SSB. Immigrants, however, join average Norwegians in pulling more money from the public purse than they put into it. Newspaper Dagens Næringsliv (DN) has reported that taxes of about [...]

Politicians polled push for opening ‘polet’

Norway’s state-controlled retailer of liquor and wine, Vinmonopolet, may get a political green light to expand its opening hours, the latest in a long series of moves to liberalize alcohol sales, at least a bit. Popularly known simply as ‘polet, the state retailer has undergone quite a bit of liberalization in recent years. Now another old [...]

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