Taxes

Every job in Norway pays a livable wage. I could have gotten a job flipping burgers for twenty eight dollars an hour. It’s not the money that attracts people to jobs, it’s the job itself. People end up doing what they really want to do for a living – not doing something just for money. (That concept is NOT American.) Recently Norway reduced their maximum tax bracket from 92% to 50% so now there is starting to be more diversity in standard of living. It used to be everyone was taxed in such a way that they all took home about the same amount.




Most people working full time make around fifty grand a year and nearly half of that goes to taxes. One of the national pastimes is complaining about taxes, but Norwegians all live upper-middle class lives compared to Americans. Many have cabins, all go on nice vacations, most drive new cars, and everyone has a decent house. Go figure. But Norwegians actually get something for the taxes they pay. They have no medical insurance premiums and minimal medical expenses ($150 per year). They have no property taxes. They don’t have to save for retirement or pay for their children’s education as those are provided for by the government, and they don’t have to worry about becoming disabled because Norway pays well for disabilities. When I think about where the bulk of our money goes in America, I worry about the rising costs of medical expenses and insurance, Kaleb’s college fund, and property taxes. No such worries plague Norwegians.



Income tax isn’t the only source of revenue in Norway, however. Sales tax is 26% on everything, including food, but it’s built into the price, so there is no math to do before going to the cash register. New cars have a 100% sales tax and most things brought in from outside Norway have a 300% import tax (which is most everything and why it’s so expensive to live there.)



I read in a Norwegian newspaper that the leading cause of death is cardiovascular related - a whopping 39% of deaths are from that and another 25% are from cancer. That’s 64% of people in Norway dying from either heart attacks or cancer, and while that seems incredibly high – the average age of death in Norway is 78 - so the bulk of those deaths are from old people. And if the only sure things in life are death and taxes, it’s guaranteed that if the taxes in Norway kill you, they will also pay for your funeral.