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Norway's Wealth Tax Unchains a Capital Exodus

47 points by bko 11mo ago

seg_lol 11mo ago
How large should the exit tax be? Earned it here, the money stays here.
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
rdtsc 11mo ago
> The recent wealth tax increase in Norway was expected to bring in an additional $146M in yearly tax revenue. I guess it's interesting to see who was expecting it. The country's tax authorities, the economists, regular folks? This would seem like something a freshman in econ 101 would be able to predict. The whole "just raise taxes from 10% to 15%" works well in an isolated environment with no other places to go. If there are places with 12% taxes, it should be obvious that's where people will move their wealth to. > Cities like Lucerne actively court Norwegian expatriates, creating communities of former Nordic residents who share similar tax-driven motivations for relocation. Exactly. This happens for companies here in US as well. A city was raising taxes on a company headquartered there and were also asking them to donate for parks and other such nice things. Another state got wind of that, and invited the company to move the headquarters there instead, with all kinds of tax breaks and credits and such. So it's not only a passive move, but other locations actively trying to recruit entities to move there.
- unethical_ban 11mo ago
  I guess it becomes "is it worth it to pressure for more wealth redistribution" or "what stick can we pair with carrots to keep greedy capital from flying away"? Like, if you relocate your headquarters from country X then country X nationalizes assets, or you are banned from operating in the country, etc.
  - formerly_proven 11mo ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit_tax
    - iamnothere 11mo ago
      The question here becomes, can you somehow implement this in a way where nobody sees it coming (otherwise they will leave before implementation). It’s possible in a dictatorship, but not likely in a democracy. Especially since the wealthy have outsized influence in most democracies.
- ceejayoz 11mo ago
  > I guess it's interesting to see who was expecting it. I mean, we saw good results in Boston with a similar policy. It made more than expected, and millionaires didn't seem to leave. https://www.nbcboston.com/news/politics/data-shows-mass-is-home-to-more-millionaires-despite-new-surtax-according-to-advocates/3698430/ https://www.nbcboston.com/news/politics/data-shows-mass-is-h... > Another state got wind of that, and invited the company to move the headquarters there instead, with all kinds of tax breaks and credits and such. This is not a good thing, IMO. It's a race to the bottom, where taxpayers lose. (I also question the article quite a bit. The link in the line "Instead, individuals worth $54B left the country, leading to a lost $594M in yearly wealth tax revenue" looks like it should be a cite, but doesn't actually go anywhere except a page which reveals that this article is hosted by a company selling… Swiss citizenship.)
  - alex43578 11mo ago
    On the contrary, state level capital controls would be absurd. People and companies should be free to move to states that match their priorities.
    - ceejayoz 11mo ago
      > People and companies should be free to move to states that match their priorities. That's fine! I object to states bribing those companies with taxpayer dollars in a silly zero-sum game where companies win and people get hosed. Concrete example: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/29/after-wisconsins-foxconn-debacle-states-rethink-giant-subsidies.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/29/after-wisconsins-foxconn-deb... I think history will look positively on things like NYC opting out of the sleazy auction that was Amazon HQ2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_HQ2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_HQ2
      - alex43578 11mo ago
        Yes, the government shouldn't be trying to bribe companies or select groups of voters with handouts using taxpayer money.
  - 11mo ago
- matco11 11mo ago
  It is somewhat different: in your example, it’s just a matter of the taxation rate. In Norway, it seems they were taxing paper gains: as an entrepreneur you take all the risk and put the effort to make your company succeed, maybe work with the smallest salary you can, so as to help your company grow more… then they come and say: “well on paper, if hypothetically you were to sell your company now, it would be worth X, so we are going to tax you on that.” …now to pay taxes you have to sell a chunk of your company, or find other ways to fund your tax bill, which is probably going to take away resources from growing your company, which probably means your company’s will grow less and hire less…
  - Workaccount2 11mo ago
    So people who are smart enough to start a successful company, are also smart enough to avoid Norway as a place to found it in. There is a reason Norway, and by extension most of Europe, completely missed out on the tech boom, and all of Europe is just using American tech. Such a shame, and Europeans still get offended when you point it out to them. Better to have stagnation than billionaires, amirite?
  - MLR 11mo ago
    By the by, one of the people specifically pointed out in this article was apparently paying a total tax bill of 17 million dollars against a net worth of 2 billion, and whatever tiny increase in taxes he would've ended up paying was enough to make him flee the country. If you can't bear to pay back even a tiny, tiny fraction of what you've been given then you shouldn't have it at all.
    - rufus_foreman 11mo ago
      The people who are fleeing the country aren't just fleeing a specific rate of taxation. They are fleeing the idea that their wealth was, as you put it, simply given to them. They are fleeing from people like you. I blame the rich people a little bit for leaving. My fight or flight reflexes learn more towards the side of fight.
      - 11mo ago
- Atomic_Torrfisk 11mo ago
  The article is misleading, and well propaganda. The official national statistical institute of Norway tracks wealth tax revenues per year. From 2022 to 2023, revenues moderately increased from around NOK 26 billion to NOK 29 billion.
- raincom 11mo ago
  Best example: Oracle moved their HQ to Texas, then moved to Tennessee.
  - rdtsc 11mo ago
    That wasn't the company I thought of initially but that's an even better example, as it involved two moves!
chrsw 11mo ago
People don't want to contribute to the country that made them rich. I expect that in a place like the USA, where your taxed money can go to helping people who don't look like you or don't have your same values. But I assumed Norwegians don't mind helping Norway.
- alex43578 11mo ago
  People are already contributing a ton to Norway, with a tax-to-GDP ratio of approximately 42.2%. Norway has a sovereign wealth fund with over US$1.9 trillion in assets. Not getting taxed even more by Norway is hardly unreasonable. At what point can we say people have contributed enough to help Norway?
  - subscribed 11mo ago
    I think you're misrepresenting the issue here. You're talking about taxing income but the wealth tax is not a tax on the income. Wealthy individuals pay MUCH lower taxes (in terms of the effective tax rate) than poor oflr middle-class people. A good example of that is the UK, where the income is taxed up to 65% (marginal tax rate between £125k and £150k) while at the same millionaire getting their money from capital gains is taxed between 24% and 32%. Of course unless the money if funneled through the shell companies (common) and the effective rate dips well under 10% As a person who pays their tax id like wealthy individuals to pay the same rate. Simple as that.
    - alex43578 11mo ago
      I think you're misrepresenting the issue. You're talking about rates as if they are fungible, conflating income taxes, capital gains taxes, and wealth taxes. These all have different implementations and ideally different purposes, so the rates should be different. Specifically, your UK example is just wrong. For 2022–23, the average rate of income tax paid was: Basic-rate taxpayers:10% of their income Higher-rate taxpayers:22% Additional-rate taxpayers (the very top):38% So on average, the rich pay a higher effective income-tax rate than middle earners, not “much lower”. In the UK, roughly 60% of all income tax is paid by the top 10% of earners, and about 30% by the top 1%. Because of the double taxation via a 25% corporation tax, for a typical UK investor, tax on capital income is often in the 40–50% range, depending on how the gain is classed.
yohannparis 11mo ago
This is an interesting outcome. Now you know which ones weren't really in Norway for the opportunities and the country lifestyle and values.
- kazinator 11mo ago
  Rather, what we know is that there are idiots in Norwegian politics who didn't see this coming because they don't understand basic economics, psychology, and second-plus order effects of changes to complex systems. They tried to pull a magic lever to get more money and ended up with a big loss, which was predictable. When you go after people's money or stuff, they fucking take evasive action! Literally everyone! - toddler having their toy taken away by another toddler; - homeless dude under the bridge having something taken from his tent; - international billionaire playboy being taxed extra. Wealthy people enjoy something called mobility. They have options. They can move wealth, as well as themselves, around the globe. Catching the poor is like fishing for eel with oiled hands. If you're a government and want to squeeze people for money and have them be not able to do anything about it, you have to pick on the struggling working class.
  - aDyslecticCrow 11mo ago
    If we cannot tax the money before it accumulates too high, there is little hope getting it afterwards. But taxing it too early penalise entrepreneurship. Tax large properties and excessive luxury seems like one of the few methods could work, but it doesn't have the same reach.
  - Atomic_Torrfisk 11mo ago
    The article is misleading, and well propaganda. The official national statistical institute of Norway tracks wealth tax revenues per year. From 2022 to 2023, revenues moderately increased from around NOK 26 billion to NOK 29 billion.
- yulker 11mo ago
  In a way it almost seems good? It seems like opportunistic capital that takes flight so easily probably wasn't seriously integrated into the local economy anyway.
wronex 11mo ago
The problem isn’t Norway. The problem is everywhere else allowing the amassing of incredible wealth with suspiciously low taxation. But we can’t even agree on a common minimum corporate tax. So yeah. Go Norway. Shame on everyone else.
- throwaway-11-1 11mo ago
  I agree, a lot of responses in this thread seems to basically just slippery slope into "guess you can't ever tax extreme wealth"
kazinator 11mo ago
Boo yeah! Tax the rich; feed the poor; till there are no rich no more ... because they went somewhere else. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cY_1ZFNgY2g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cY_1ZFNgY2g
- ceejayoz 11mo ago
  I mean, that's why https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eat_the_rich https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eat_the_rich exists.
BurningFrog 11mo ago
Norway is arguably the richest country in the world, mostly from their huge oil wealth. It's hard to understand why they keep raising taxes.
- ceejayoz 11mo ago
  > It's hard to understand why they keep raising taxes. Because they can do better things with it than buy a second megayacht.
- alex43578 11mo ago
  Because if 6 people can vote to take from 4 people, odds are they will.
  - ZeroGravitas 11mo ago
    And if 6 billionaires can pay to take from 4 million, they will.
- thinkingtoilet 11mo ago
  How much effort have you put into understanding Norway's economic situation and tax burdens? It might not be that hard to understand at all.
- tyfon 11mo ago
  It's to avoid the dutch decease, but the "oil fund" revenue is now paying for 20% of the state budget so it's getting close. The total tax level for Norwegians are only in the middle of the chart when compared to other OECD countries so it is not really that high comparatively. The main issue with the "wealth tax" is that it is also taxing active capital (company values, stock etc) even if that capital is not making a profit. On another note, as a Norwegian, I happily pay my taxes even if I am in the top bracket. It is for the most part spent wisely.
  - grebc 11mo ago
    It is nice to feel that your taxes in your country are being spent wisely. I know it’s subjective so different for everyone but here in Australia I feel like it’s been a long time since we had actual leadership and we’ve had lousy middle management steering the ship.
Workaccount2 11mo ago
Next up is NYC, with an economy about 2x the size of Norway's. Let's see how that goes over...
MrGilbert 11mo ago
I'm a bit… hesitant to accept the article at face value. Obviously, the "mission" of this company is to help (rich) people to secure their wealth. I never knew such services exist, which might just mean that I'm not rich. The article states: "This is why obtaining second citizenship and multiple passports is a crucial diversification strategy in the modern world." Sounds like blunt advertising to me.
- ml-anon 11mo ago
  Ding ding ding
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
- tencentshill 11mo ago
  It's an ad for their service. By "The Network state AG", co-founded by Alex Recouso (who curiously does not have a Wikipedia page, and very little information on google not controlled by him). Related to a concept promoted by A16Z, Vitalik Buterin, Srinivasan (an investor!) and other creepy crypto billionaires. It uses the same sentence structure as Palantir's advertising. Very final. Very direct. Inevitable. Incredibly off-putting knowing the philosophy of those invested in the concept.
- rozap 11mo ago
  Yea, this is an ad for yarvinist nonsense. I think a lot about how there's no shame in our industry. It's really wild how these folks are just so blatantly antisocial.
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
Qiu_Zhanxuan 11mo ago
Those people should be named and shamed. If they're bi-national, have their citizenship revoked and them and their descendant forbidden from entering the country ever again unless they pay the tax they evaded.
gnarlouse 11mo ago
Make Class Warfare MAD Again.
d--b 11mo ago
this is why they should implement exit tax like the us does.
Atomic_Torrfisk 11mo ago
Anyone who actually bothers to reads this article will know that it's blatant agenda pushing, nothing more. Here are some of the highlights: a) The article is published by a company who's caters to rich individuals who want to gain citizenship in other countries by paying their way in. Morally dubious to begin with. b) The 54B capital flight figure is unsubstantiated. They cite no sources, only a single hyperlink that redirects to their own completely unrelated webpage?? c) The lost tax revenue estimates also seem to be completely made up. In fact, they make no mention of the figures past the title and introductory paragraph. A complete joke of an article. If you're interested to know the real numbers, the official national statistical institute of Norway (link below) tracks wealth tax revenues per year. From 2022 to 2023, revenues moderately increased from around NOK 26 billion to NOK 29 billion. 2024 statistics are only due to come out this year. https://www.ssb.no/en/statbank/table/10333 https://www.ssb.no/en/statbank/table/10333
fra 11mo ago
In practice, I don’t think tax policy is the primary driver for where people chose to live. Even very wealthy people. If I were very wealthy the first thing I would want to buy is proximity to the people I love, the food I like, the culture I’m excited about. For many people that means being close to home. I can’t imagine how shallow my life would have to be for me to optimize it around taxes.
- digdugdirk 11mo ago
  That's the thing though - the ultra wealthy already do buy that kind of proximity. They have multiple properties all over the world, accessed via private jet, helicopter, or mega yacht. They live in an entirely different reality compared to someone with a job - even someone who works in the c-suite. They also aren't the ones doing the optimization. They have people for that. This article seems to be written by someone who is trying to bring that kind of service down the ladder to the slightly more common folk - the mega rich, not just the ultra rich.
everyone 11mo ago
Well good riddance to the fucking parasites.
B1FF_PSUVM 11mo ago
"This is known as 'bad luck'"
politelemon 11mo ago
The article is suspicious to me and I am flagging it. It does not show any sources, it appears to be an attempt to go viral to spread the misinformation circularly. Further, the wealth tax news was from 2023 but they call it 'recent' (the post is dated 2025). This comment chain on reddit shows that there was a revenue decrease likely due to petrol prices. https://www.reddit.com/r/ProfessorFinance/comments/1or4l6u/norways_wealth_tax_increase_expected_to_raise/nnnskbn/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ProfessorFinance/comments/1or4l6u/n... Looking at the NO gov website, I can see that there was an increase in revenue from the wealth tax but a decrease from petroleum. https://www.ssb.no/en/offentlig-sektor/offentlig-forvaltning/statistikk/offentlig-forvaltnings-inntekter-og-utgifter https://www.ssb.no/en/offentlig-sektor/offentlig-forvaltning... So the citizenx site is falsely claiming the decrease in order to further its own agenda.
lo_zamoyski 11mo ago
Apparently, the Laffer curve is yet to become common knowledge.
- ceejayoz 11mo ago
  The Laffer curve has yet to become knowledge, period. It's theoretical (if that; hypothetical might be fairer), overly simplistic, and everyone can basically assert at-will where we are on it at any time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve Practical tests have… not gone well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_experiment
  - lo_zamoyski 11mo ago
    The Laffer curve doesn't tell you what the revenue-maximizing rate is or how to structure taxes. That point is that capital tends to move away from places with high taxes toward those with lower taxes passed a certain threshold. This seems obviously true. > Practical tests have… not gone well. You mean like this Norwegian "test"?
    - ceejayoz 11mo ago
      > That point is that capital tends to move away from places with high taxes toward those with lower taxes passed a certain threshold. What's in dispute is where that threshold is, and how steep the curve before/after it. (It looks more like this, in other words: https://taxpolicy.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/image-18.png https://taxpolicy.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/image-18...) Per Wiki: "A 2011 study by Trabandt and Uhlig published in the Journal of Monetary Economics estimated a 70% revenue maximizing rate, and estimated that the US and most European economies were on the left of the Laffer curve (in other words, that raising taxes would raise further revenue). A 2005 study concluded that with the exception of Sweden, no major OECD country could increase revenue by reducing the marginal tax rate." > You mean like this Norwegian "test"? Others have pointed out that the (uncited!) numbers in this advertisement targeted at the mega-wealthy seem to be plain old made up (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45930222 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45930222), so yes.
asdfman123 11mo ago
I'm disheartened by presumably left leaning people who are responding to this news with some variant of "shame on them" and "billionaires are bad." I'm not trying to defend billionaires but I feel like the last years of left-wing political action has been the left trying to mash the "shame" button without realizing the button has been disconnected behind the panel. The left used to be able to deplatform people. They can't anymore because there's more platforms. They need to think more in terms of sober cause and effect and basic political realities. If they don't, they'll just convince people that they can't govern.
- ceejayoz 11mo ago
  > I'm not trying to defend billionaires but I feel like the last years of left-wing political action has been the left trying to mash the "shame" button without realizing the button has been disconnected behind the panel. "The shameless have won" is not the left's fault.
  - asdfman123 11mo ago
    But that's the problem right there, thinking in terms of blame. The left seems to be more interested in moral correctness than winning. It doesn't matter whose "fault" it is, it is literally an irrelevant discussion. I'd just like to see the left win more. There's also the tension between "the sort of narratives they tell the people to gain public support" and realpolitik. Narrative is necessary in politics but I'd like to see more of the informed, educated left think more in terms of political realities.
    - ceejayoz 11mo ago
      > But that's the problem right there, thinking in terms of blame. I'd argue you started with victim blaming a bit - how the left has fucked up. But I'd argue the issue is the shameless have realized they can escape consequences, and are taking advantage of that fact.
      - asdfman123 11mo ago
boriskourt 11mo ago
As others have pointed out this is an advertisement for this service, with a lot of unsubstantiated claims.
chaosprint 11mo ago
The most foolish method is calculating startup valuations. While there are some so-called discounts, they are essentially negligible. You can think of it this way: if you receive $3 million in seed funding, the government considers you to have $30 million * your equity wealth. If you're one of two co-founders, owning 40% of the shares, that's $12 million in assets! Haha, the government thinks that's equivalent to owning 20 apartments in Oslo. Okay, they seem to have completely ignored the risks and mortality rates of startups. Of course, this policy wasn't initially targeted at startups; it was primarily aimed at traditional industries. The reality is that the wealthy have plenty of ways to avoid taxes or even leave the country. People who own 20 houses in Oslo are unaffected; the only problem is that there are fewer people starting businesses and fewer opportunities to raise funds. It's just that the people who formulated the policy were so stupid that they didn't understand the situation at all. These fundamental aspects won't change, because Norway's oil and sovereign wealth fund are enough to sustain them for a long time.
- aDyslecticCrow 11mo ago
  Sweden cut the wealth tax, and got a very high startup to capital ratio; but a rapidly rising wealth gap as a consequence. That wealth came from the local economy so it's reasonable to think it should return. But in practice there does not seem to exist any good approaches to do so.
  - ceejayoz 11mo ago
    Sweden is also a bit of an exception. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve > A 2011 study by Trabandt and Uhlig published in the Journal of Monetary Economics estimated a 70% revenue maximizing rate, and estimated that the US and most European economies were on the left of the Laffer curve (in other words, that raising taxes would raise further revenue). A 2005 study concluded that with the exception of Sweden, no major OECD country could increase revenue by reducing the marginal tax rate.
rullera 11mo ago
This is an ad :/
chairmansteve 11mo ago
I don't know the details in this case, but extreme wealth is corrosive to democracy. Maybe Norway is a better place now...

47 points by bko 11mo ago

seg_lol 11mo ago

How large should the exit tax be? Earned it here, the money stays here.

deleted 11mo ago

[deleted]

rdtsc 11mo ago

> The recent wealth tax increase in Norway was expected to bring in an additional $146M in yearly tax revenue. I guess it's interesting to see who was expecting it. The country's tax authorities, the economists, regular folks? This would seem like something a freshman in econ 101 would be able to predict. The whole "just raise taxes from 10% to 15%" works well in an isolated environment with no other places to go. If there are places with 12% taxes, it should be obvious that's where people will move their wealth to. > Cities like Lucerne actively court Norwegian expatriates, creating communities of former Nordic residents who share similar tax-driven motivations for relocation. Exactly. This happens for companies here in US as well. A city was raising taxes on a company headquartered there and were also asking them to donate for parks and other such nice things. Another state got wind of that, and invited the company to move the headquarters there instead, with all kinds of tax breaks and credits and such. So it's not only a passive move, but other locations actively trying to recruit entities to move there.

unethical_ban 11mo ago
I guess it becomes "is it worth it to pressure for more wealth redistribution" or "what stick can we pair with carrots to keep greedy capital from flying away"? Like, if you relocate your headquarters from country X then country X nationalizes assets, or you are banned from operating in the country, etc.
- formerly_proven 11mo ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit_tax
  - iamnothere 11mo ago
    The question here becomes, can you somehow implement this in a way where nobody sees it coming (otherwise they will leave before implementation). It’s possible in a dictatorship, but not likely in a democracy. Especially since the wealthy have outsized influence in most democracies.
ceejayoz 11mo ago
> I guess it's interesting to see who was expecting it. I mean, we saw good results in Boston with a similar policy. It made more than expected, and millionaires didn't seem to leave. https://www.nbcboston.com/news/politics/data-shows-mass-is-home-to-more-millionaires-despite-new-surtax-according-to-advocates/3698430/ https://www.nbcboston.com/news/politics/data-shows-mass-is-h... > Another state got wind of that, and invited the company to move the headquarters there instead, with all kinds of tax breaks and credits and such. This is not a good thing, IMO. It's a race to the bottom, where taxpayers lose. (I also question the article quite a bit. The link in the line "Instead, individuals worth $54B left the country, leading to a lost $594M in yearly wealth tax revenue" looks like it should be a cite, but doesn't actually go anywhere except a page which reveals that this article is hosted by a company selling… Swiss citizenship.)
- alex43578 11mo ago
  On the contrary, state level capital controls would be absurd. People and companies should be free to move to states that match their priorities.
  - ceejayoz 11mo ago
    > People and companies should be free to move to states that match their priorities. That's fine! I object to states bribing those companies with taxpayer dollars in a silly zero-sum game where companies win and people get hosed. Concrete example: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/29/after-wisconsins-foxconn-debacle-states-rethink-giant-subsidies.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/29/after-wisconsins-foxconn-deb... I think history will look positively on things like NYC opting out of the sleazy auction that was Amazon HQ2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_HQ2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_HQ2
    - alex43578 11mo ago
      Yes, the government shouldn't be trying to bribe companies or select groups of voters with handouts using taxpayer money.
- 11mo ago
matco11 11mo ago
It is somewhat different: in your example, it’s just a matter of the taxation rate. In Norway, it seems they were taxing paper gains: as an entrepreneur you take all the risk and put the effort to make your company succeed, maybe work with the smallest salary you can, so as to help your company grow more… then they come and say: “well on paper, if hypothetically you were to sell your company now, it would be worth X, so we are going to tax you on that.” …now to pay taxes you have to sell a chunk of your company, or find other ways to fund your tax bill, which is probably going to take away resources from growing your company, which probably means your company’s will grow less and hire less…
- Workaccount2 11mo ago
  So people who are smart enough to start a successful company, are also smart enough to avoid Norway as a place to found it in. There is a reason Norway, and by extension most of Europe, completely missed out on the tech boom, and all of Europe is just using American tech. Such a shame, and Europeans still get offended when you point it out to them. Better to have stagnation than billionaires, amirite?
- MLR 11mo ago
  By the by, one of the people specifically pointed out in this article was apparently paying a total tax bill of 17 million dollars against a net worth of 2 billion, and whatever tiny increase in taxes he would've ended up paying was enough to make him flee the country. If you can't bear to pay back even a tiny, tiny fraction of what you've been given then you shouldn't have it at all.
  - rufus_foreman 11mo ago
    The people who are fleeing the country aren't just fleeing a specific rate of taxation. They are fleeing the idea that their wealth was, as you put it, simply given to them. They are fleeing from people like you. I blame the rich people a little bit for leaving. My fight or flight reflexes learn more towards the side of fight.
    - 11mo ago
Atomic_Torrfisk 11mo ago
The article is misleading, and well propaganda. The official national statistical institute of Norway tracks wealth tax revenues per year. From 2022 to 2023, revenues moderately increased from around NOK 26 billion to NOK 29 billion.
raincom 11mo ago
Best example: Oracle moved their HQ to Texas, then moved to Tennessee.
- rdtsc 11mo ago
  That wasn't the company I thought of initially but that's an even better example, as it involved two moves!

chrsw 11mo ago

People don't want to contribute to the country that made them rich. I expect that in a place like the USA, where your taxed money can go to helping people who don't look like you or don't have your same values. But I assumed Norwegians don't mind helping Norway.

alex43578 11mo ago
People are already contributing a ton to Norway, with a tax-to-GDP ratio of approximately 42.2%. Norway has a sovereign wealth fund with over US$1.9 trillion in assets. Not getting taxed even more by Norway is hardly unreasonable. At what point can we say people have contributed enough to help Norway?
- subscribed 11mo ago
  I think you're misrepresenting the issue here. You're talking about taxing income but the wealth tax is not a tax on the income. Wealthy individuals pay MUCH lower taxes (in terms of the effective tax rate) than poor oflr middle-class people. A good example of that is the UK, where the income is taxed up to 65% (marginal tax rate between £125k and £150k) while at the same millionaire getting their money from capital gains is taxed between 24% and 32%. Of course unless the money if funneled through the shell companies (common) and the effective rate dips well under 10% As a person who pays their tax id like wealthy individuals to pay the same rate. Simple as that.
  - alex43578 11mo ago
    I think you're misrepresenting the issue. You're talking about rates as if they are fungible, conflating income taxes, capital gains taxes, and wealth taxes. These all have different implementations and ideally different purposes, so the rates should be different. Specifically, your UK example is just wrong. For 2022–23, the average rate of income tax paid was: Basic-rate taxpayers:10% of their income Higher-rate taxpayers:22% Additional-rate taxpayers (the very top):38% So on average, the rich pay a higher effective income-tax rate than middle earners, not “much lower”. In the UK, roughly 60% of all income tax is paid by the top 10% of earners, and about 30% by the top 1%. Because of the double taxation via a 25% corporation tax, for a typical UK investor, tax on capital income is often in the 40–50% range, depending on how the gain is classed.

yohannparis 11mo ago

This is an interesting outcome. Now you know which ones weren't really in Norway for the opportunities and the country lifestyle and values.

kazinator 11mo ago
Rather, what we know is that there are idiots in Norwegian politics who didn't see this coming because they don't understand basic economics, psychology, and second-plus order effects of changes to complex systems. They tried to pull a magic lever to get more money and ended up with a big loss, which was predictable. When you go after people's money or stuff, they fucking take evasive action! Literally everyone! - toddler having their toy taken away by another toddler; - homeless dude under the bridge having something taken from his tent; - international billionaire playboy being taxed extra. Wealthy people enjoy something called mobility. They have options. They can move wealth, as well as themselves, around the globe. Catching the poor is like fishing for eel with oiled hands. If you're a government and want to squeeze people for money and have them be not able to do anything about it, you have to pick on the struggling working class.
- aDyslecticCrow 11mo ago
  If we cannot tax the money before it accumulates too high, there is little hope getting it afterwards. But taxing it too early penalise entrepreneurship. Tax large properties and excessive luxury seems like one of the few methods could work, but it doesn't have the same reach.
- Atomic_Torrfisk 11mo ago
  The article is misleading, and well propaganda. The official national statistical institute of Norway tracks wealth tax revenues per year. From 2022 to 2023, revenues moderately increased from around NOK 26 billion to NOK 29 billion.
yulker 11mo ago
In a way it almost seems good? It seems like opportunistic capital that takes flight so easily probably wasn't seriously integrated into the local economy anyway.

wronex 11mo ago

The problem isn’t Norway. The problem is everywhere else allowing the amassing of incredible wealth with suspiciously low taxation. But we can’t even agree on a common minimum corporate tax. So yeah. Go Norway. Shame on everyone else.

throwaway-11-1 11mo ago
I agree, a lot of responses in this thread seems to basically just slippery slope into "guess you can't ever tax extreme wealth"

kazinator 11mo ago

Boo yeah! Tax the rich; feed the poor; till there are no rich no more ... because they went somewhere else. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cY_1ZFNgY2g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cY_1ZFNgY2g

ceejayoz 11mo ago
I mean, that's why https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eat_the_rich https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eat_the_rich exists.

BurningFrog 11mo ago

Norway is arguably the richest country in the world, mostly from their huge oil wealth. It's hard to understand why they keep raising taxes.

ceejayoz 11mo ago
> It's hard to understand why they keep raising taxes. Because they can do better things with it than buy a second megayacht.
alex43578 11mo ago
Because if 6 people can vote to take from 4 people, odds are they will.
- ZeroGravitas 11mo ago
  And if 6 billionaires can pay to take from 4 million, they will.
thinkingtoilet 11mo ago
How much effort have you put into understanding Norway's economic situation and tax burdens? It might not be that hard to understand at all.
tyfon 11mo ago
It's to avoid the dutch decease, but the "oil fund" revenue is now paying for 20% of the state budget so it's getting close. The total tax level for Norwegians are only in the middle of the chart when compared to other OECD countries so it is not really that high comparatively. The main issue with the "wealth tax" is that it is also taxing active capital (company values, stock etc) even if that capital is not making a profit. On another note, as a Norwegian, I happily pay my taxes even if I am in the top bracket. It is for the most part spent wisely.
- grebc 11mo ago
  It is nice to feel that your taxes in your country are being spent wisely. I know it’s subjective so different for everyone but here in Australia I feel like it’s been a long time since we had actual leadership and we’ve had lousy middle management steering the ship.

Workaccount2 11mo ago

Next up is NYC, with an economy about 2x the size of Norway's. Let's see how that goes over...

MrGilbert 11mo ago

I'm a bit… hesitant to accept the article at face value. Obviously, the "mission" of this company is to help (rich) people to secure their wealth. I never knew such services exist, which might just mean that I'm not rich. The article states: "This is why obtaining second citizenship and multiple passports is a crucial diversification strategy in the modern world." Sounds like blunt advertising to me.

ml-anon 11mo ago
Ding ding ding
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
tencentshill 11mo ago
It's an ad for their service. By "The Network state AG", co-founded by Alex Recouso (who curiously does not have a Wikipedia page, and very little information on google not controlled by him). Related to a concept promoted by A16Z, Vitalik Buterin, Srinivasan (an investor!) and other creepy crypto billionaires. It uses the same sentence structure as Palantir's advertising. Very final. Very direct. Inevitable. Incredibly off-putting knowing the philosophy of those invested in the concept.
rozap 11mo ago
Yea, this is an ad for yarvinist nonsense. I think a lot about how there's no shame in our industry. It's really wild how these folks are just so blatantly antisocial.
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]

Qiu_Zhanxuan 11mo ago

Those people should be named and shamed. If they're bi-national, have their citizenship revoked and them and their descendant forbidden from entering the country ever again unless they pay the tax they evaded.

gnarlouse 11mo ago

Make Class Warfare MAD Again.

d--b 11mo ago

this is why they should implement exit tax like the us does.

Atomic_Torrfisk 11mo ago

Anyone who actually bothers to reads this article will know that it's blatant agenda pushing, nothing more. Here are some of the highlights: a) The article is published by a company who's caters to rich individuals who want to gain citizenship in other countries by paying their way in. Morally dubious to begin with. b) The 54B capital flight figure is unsubstantiated. They cite no sources, only a single hyperlink that redirects to their own completely unrelated webpage?? c) The lost tax revenue estimates also seem to be completely made up. In fact, they make no mention of the figures past the title and introductory paragraph. A complete joke of an article. If you're interested to know the real numbers, the official national statistical institute of Norway (link below) tracks wealth tax revenues per year. From 2022 to 2023, revenues moderately increased from around NOK 26 billion to NOK 29 billion. 2024 statistics are only due to come out this year. https://www.ssb.no/en/statbank/table/10333 https://www.ssb.no/en/statbank/table/10333

fra 11mo ago

In practice, I don’t think tax policy is the primary driver for where people chose to live. Even very wealthy people. If I were very wealthy the first thing I would want to buy is proximity to the people I love, the food I like, the culture I’m excited about. For many people that means being close to home. I can’t imagine how shallow my life would have to be for me to optimize it around taxes.

digdugdirk 11mo ago
That's the thing though - the ultra wealthy already do buy that kind of proximity. They have multiple properties all over the world, accessed via private jet, helicopter, or mega yacht. They live in an entirely different reality compared to someone with a job - even someone who works in the c-suite. They also aren't the ones doing the optimization. They have people for that. This article seems to be written by someone who is trying to bring that kind of service down the ladder to the slightly more common folk - the mega rich, not just the ultra rich.

everyone 11mo ago

Well good riddance to the fucking parasites.

B1FF_PSUVM 11mo ago

"This is known as 'bad luck'"

politelemon 11mo ago

The article is suspicious to me and I am flagging it. It does not show any sources, it appears to be an attempt to go viral to spread the misinformation circularly. Further, the wealth tax news was from 2023 but they call it 'recent' (the post is dated 2025). This comment chain on reddit shows that there was a revenue decrease likely due to petrol prices. https://www.reddit.com/r/ProfessorFinance/comments/1or4l6u/norways_wealth_tax_increase_expected_to_raise/nnnskbn/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ProfessorFinance/comments/1or4l6u/n... Looking at the NO gov website, I can see that there was an increase in revenue from the wealth tax but a decrease from petroleum. https://www.ssb.no/en/offentlig-sektor/offentlig-forvaltning/statistikk/offentlig-forvaltnings-inntekter-og-utgifter https://www.ssb.no/en/offentlig-sektor/offentlig-forvaltning... So the citizenx site is falsely claiming the decrease in order to further its own agenda.

lo_zamoyski 11mo ago

Apparently, the Laffer curve is yet to become common knowledge.

ceejayoz 11mo ago
The Laffer curve has yet to become knowledge, period. It's theoretical (if that; hypothetical might be fairer), overly simplistic, and everyone can basically assert at-will where we are on it at any time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve Practical tests have… not gone well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_experiment
- lo_zamoyski 11mo ago
  The Laffer curve doesn't tell you what the revenue-maximizing rate is or how to structure taxes. That point is that capital tends to move away from places with high taxes toward those with lower taxes passed a certain threshold. This seems obviously true. > Practical tests have… not gone well. You mean like this Norwegian "test"?
  - ceejayoz 11mo ago
    > That point is that capital tends to move away from places with high taxes toward those with lower taxes passed a certain threshold. What's in dispute is where that threshold is, and how steep the curve before/after it. (It looks more like this, in other words: https://taxpolicy.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/image-18.png https://taxpolicy.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/image-18...) Per Wiki: "A 2011 study by Trabandt and Uhlig published in the Journal of Monetary Economics estimated a 70% revenue maximizing rate, and estimated that the US and most European economies were on the left of the Laffer curve (in other words, that raising taxes would raise further revenue). A 2005 study concluded that with the exception of Sweden, no major OECD country could increase revenue by reducing the marginal tax rate." > You mean like this Norwegian "test"? Others have pointed out that the (uncited!) numbers in this advertisement targeted at the mega-wealthy seem to be plain old made up (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45930222 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45930222), so yes.

asdfman123 11mo ago

I'm disheartened by presumably left leaning people who are responding to this news with some variant of "shame on them" and "billionaires are bad." I'm not trying to defend billionaires but I feel like the last years of left-wing political action has been the left trying to mash the "shame" button without realizing the button has been disconnected behind the panel. The left used to be able to deplatform people. They can't anymore because there's more platforms. They need to think more in terms of sober cause and effect and basic political realities. If they don't, they'll just convince people that they can't govern.

ceejayoz 11mo ago
> I'm not trying to defend billionaires but I feel like the last years of left-wing political action has been the left trying to mash the "shame" button without realizing the button has been disconnected behind the panel. "The shameless have won" is not the left's fault.
- asdfman123 11mo ago
  But that's the problem right there, thinking in terms of blame. The left seems to be more interested in moral correctness than winning. It doesn't matter whose "fault" it is, it is literally an irrelevant discussion. I'd just like to see the left win more. There's also the tension between "the sort of narratives they tell the people to gain public support" and realpolitik. Narrative is necessary in politics but I'd like to see more of the informed, educated left think more in terms of political realities.
  - ceejayoz 11mo ago
    > But that's the problem right there, thinking in terms of blame. I'd argue you started with victim blaming a bit - how the left has fucked up. But I'd argue the issue is the shameless have realized they can escape consequences, and are taking advantage of that fact.
    - asdfman123 11mo ago

boriskourt 11mo ago

As others have pointed out this is an advertisement for this service, with a lot of unsubstantiated claims.

chaosprint 11mo ago

The most foolish method is calculating startup valuations. While there are some so-called discounts, they are essentially negligible. You can think of it this way: if you receive $3 million in seed funding, the government considers you to have $30 million * your equity wealth. If you're one of two co-founders, owning 40% of the shares, that's $12 million in assets! Haha, the government thinks that's equivalent to owning 20 apartments in Oslo. Okay, they seem to have completely ignored the risks and mortality rates of startups. Of course, this policy wasn't initially targeted at startups; it was primarily aimed at traditional industries. The reality is that the wealthy have plenty of ways to avoid taxes or even leave the country. People who own 20 houses in Oslo are unaffected; the only problem is that there are fewer people starting businesses and fewer opportunities to raise funds. It's just that the people who formulated the policy were so stupid that they didn't understand the situation at all. These fundamental aspects won't change, because Norway's oil and sovereign wealth fund are enough to sustain them for a long time.

aDyslecticCrow 11mo ago
Sweden cut the wealth tax, and got a very high startup to capital ratio; but a rapidly rising wealth gap as a consequence. That wealth came from the local economy so it's reasonable to think it should return. But in practice there does not seem to exist any good approaches to do so.
- ceejayoz 11mo ago
  Sweden is also a bit of an exception. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve > A 2011 study by Trabandt and Uhlig published in the Journal of Monetary Economics estimated a 70% revenue maximizing rate, and estimated that the US and most European economies were on the left of the Laffer curve (in other words, that raising taxes would raise further revenue). A 2005 study concluded that with the exception of Sweden, no major OECD country could increase revenue by reducing the marginal tax rate.

rullera 11mo ago

This is an ad :/

chairmansteve 11mo ago

I don't know the details in this case, but extreme wealth is corrosive to democracy. Maybe Norway is a better place now...