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Perhaps this is why they can afford many government programs that the US simply cannot. Without a prolific income stream comparable to Norwegian oil, the only way to provide more social services is to tax individuals and businesses harder.

Tax any group too heavily and you create brain drain, which hurts in the long run.

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Norwegian software developer here. I pay my taxes with pleasure, knowing that the money supported my education, my ability to go to the hospital, good roads, good airports, and lots of other public functions that are great because we collectively invest in them. I think anything below 20% in taxes simply means a country's public functions will suffer.

It's weird to me that Americans have so much against taxes. If a country has a low degree of curruption, and has incentives to innovate in the public sector, then taxes are a good thing.

Obviously I can't speak for the general population, but as for my close proximity: My colleagues think taxes are good too. No brain drain here.

All of the amenities that people like in America come from their local governments - police, roads, emergency services, courts, you name it. The surprising thing is that the local governments usually levy only a small fraction of the tax burden. Most of an American's tax goes to the federal government, where nobody knows what happens to it. It's stirred around, and a lot of it comes back to the local governments in the form of strings-attached funding that is used as an end-run around the individual state's rights to govern themselves. When the strings-attached money circles back to the local governments, they swear fealty to the federal government (which is what they're being paid to do) and then re-brand it as local services. That's why the average American sees a tiny fraction of their tax going to the local entity that does all the work, and a big fraction of their tax going to the federal system that only interacts with them when they haven't sent enough money.

American here. I have no problem paying taxes. I just hate to see my tax dollars mismanaged. Baltimore MD has been in the news lately, largely as people have focused on a certain public official's tweets. Baltimore receives a huge amount of taxpayer dollars, federal, state, and local. Its per pupil school spending is by far the highest in the state. The percentage of public secondary school students who demonstrate proficiency in mathematics is less than 1%. 2 of its last 3 city mayors have resigned due to corruption charges. I consider this mismanagement.

Middleclass Americans' income taxes are around or above 20%. Americans generally are opposed to taxes because there is a perception (rightly or wrongly) that our government is inefficient (due to some combination of corruption and incompetence), and we should sort that out before increasing taxes on programs with a (perceived) high probability of mismanagement.

> Obviously I can't speak for the general population, but as for my close proximity: My colleagues think taxes are good too. No brain drain here.

I think that's the critical difference--Norwegians believe they are getting value out of their taxes and Americans do not.

EDIT: Obviously this is a generalization of groups; not all Americans think the government is inefficient. Hopefully we can forego the predictable and pointless digression into "well not all Americans are that way!"

Take a look at what the American government budget is spent on: https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-bud... (scroll down to "Total Federal Spending 2015"). The three largest parts of the spending pie, constituting over two thirds of government spending, are "Social Security, Unemployment and Labor", "Medicare and Health", and "Military". Less than 20% goes to education/infrastructure. Many conservative Americans oppose welfare and socialised medicine, and similarly many liberal Americans oppose high military spending (which makes up over half of "Discretionary Spending"), so it's easy to see why they think their taxes are being wasted. There are countries like Singapore that have extremely good infrastructure and schooling with government spending under 20% of GDP, because they spend only on infrastructure, not welfare, so high spending isn't a prerequisite for good infrastructure.

Less than 20% of Federal spending goes to education and infrastructure because the States pay for most education and infrastructure, it is misleading to only use Federal numbers for services provided primarily by States.

The US spends more on K-12 education alone than on the military.

> I think anything below 20% in taxes simply means a country's public functions will suffer.

Honestly, the biggest difference between nations isn't so much in income/payroll taxes, but in the VAT. The US simply doesn't have one at the federal level, and state sales taxes are typically in the neighbourhood of 6% (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sales_taxes_in_the_United_Stat...).

I don’t know what that graph is showing but it’s not the sales tax I pay at the register. In Illinois it’s usually 9-11% if I recall correctly. I’m in Chicago, so maybe the local sales tax is much higher than the state average?

I believe that the problem in most countries is that rich people have successfully brainwashed the population into thinking that is bad to support their own people with schools, health care, cultural programs, etc. On the other hand, they successfully brainwashed the masses into believing the socialism for the rich is necessary: for example, you will see people crying on the newspapers because the rich are paying "too much" in taxes, when in fact they never payed so little.

U.S. Government spending is roughly 38% of GDP and in Norway it's 48%. I think it's safe to say that the U.S. can and does spend a lot, the debate is more towards what ends and how. I'm inclined to think we do a really poor job, with numerous reasons why.

Source: https://data.oecd.org/gga/general-government-spending.htm

Most spending in the US is squandered around war and socialism to the rich. The country has doing little int the last few decades to support science and combating global warming; they're also cutting social programs.

Like I said, various reasons.

Though in terms of science I'm not sure you're correct. U.S. spends above age in R&D spending as a percentage of GDP. Source: https://data.oecd.org/chart/5Dtz

You hit the nail on the head. Half-Norwegian here. Locals all speak of the oil as a gift to Norway from the seas/God/whatever.

An economic analysis in comparison to Finland and Sweden would be interesting.

> Tax any group too heavily and you create brain drain, which hurts in the long run.

Sweden and Denmark disagree. And they're among the most wealthy countries with the highest standard of living anywhere.

Without advocating taxing any group too heavily, is there any evidence that this practice has ever created a brain drain?

Just anti-tax propaganda

That would be a very interesting study. Anecdotally, only one person in my group of ambitious acquaintances has left Norway due to better opportunities elsewhere. Some super-wealthy (>$20 million net worth) have left to avoid paying the annual wealth tax of 0.85% of the market value of all taxes.

The best comparison is Sweden, which is right next door, culturally and linguistically similar, but does not have oil like Norway does.

But is does have more and more easily used land. And while it looks very similar from outside Scandinavia it doesn't look quite so similar close up. Culturally similar but far from the same.

Topographically they are quite different, timber is more profitable in Sweden for instance because the country is much flatter and transport is much easier.

The two countries have different challenges to overcome and different histories that still affect the way people think.

> "Without a prolific income stream comparable to Norwegian oil..."

The USA certainly has such streams. The difference is priorities, not revenue.

Their income tax is 22% if I'm not mistaken.

Sales tax is 25% (lower on food + public transport). Income tax is close to 50% for most of people (progressive), in addition there is a 14% tax per employee that the companies have to pay. If you take out dividend there is a 25% tax that don't earn you pension.

Norway is also one of the few remaining countries that have a wealth tax (among OECD countries, the only other one is Switzerland), which is currently at 0.85% of all net assets above 1.4m NOK, including cash, public and private stock, cars, boats, and of course real estate. Material assets such as real estate is assessed based on tables that take square footage, age, etc. into consideration. The tax is, unusually and somewhat controversially, uncapped. In theory, you could end up owing 100% or more of your income in wealth tax.

Netherlands also has a wealth tax.

It's a bit different. Also, no capital gains tax.

Average income tax (as taken from your paycheck), seems to be around 30% - it’s lower than many other north west European countries

But coupled with the VAT of 25% the effective tax rate is closer to 50%.

The top marginal tax rate band is around 50%. Very few people pay that much income tax, or anywhere near it so it's highly misleading most people is near it. A large portion of the population are close to seeing a small portion of their income taxed at the marginal rates because Norwegian incomes are unusually flat and high, yes.

But according to OECD taxing wages 2019, the median tax and social security contribution for a single person with no children in full time employment in Norway is 27.5% vs 23.8% for the US.

Of course the US varies significantly by state.

Sales tax has relatively low impact as you spend a relatively low portion of your income on things taxed at the full rate.

You can calculate what you would pay using

    https://skattekalkulator2018.app.skatteetaten.no/?aar=2018&alder=63&alderEF&kommune&locale=en_UK&sivilstand=UGIFT&tolvdelVedArbeidsoppholdINorge=12&tolvdelVedArbeidsoppholdINorgeEF=12&vilHaTolvdel=false

For an unmarried person with 500 kNOK income (56288 USD), no debts, no investments, and a house worth 2 000 kNOK (225152 USD) the annual tax is

    134 991 NOK

That's just short of 27%.

Someone with an income of 300 kNOK and a home worth 1 000 kNOK the tax pays half that:

    61 571 NOK

About 20.5%.

If you have children you pay less tax.

But where/how does the money get spent?

Surely the government doesn’t burn it.

And a better metric would be to look at tax burden, because top marginal rates are just that: what you pay on our last dollar, not your first. Sales tax isn’t charged on rent/food/property so it’s only charged on a small percentage of one’s after-tax income.

Income tax comparisons will dramatically underestimate the tax burden for Norwegian citizens, but even then I believe you are only quoting the capital gains rate for non-securities investments. Summarizing from a comment I posted elsewhere:

* 25% VAT on everything except food, which is 12%. Electric vehicles currently exempt

* 40% income tax on average including 8% public pension contribution. Highest marginal tax on income is 47%, which applies to incomes greater than $116k.

* Employer has to pay 14% of your salary as employment tax. Company profits are taxed at 24% (this is separate from the capital gains tax). Stock-based compensation is taxed as income, so no possibility of weaseling around the employment tax. You won't get stock-based compensation unless you're in a startup or a C-class executive at a (big) private company. The wealth tax does weird things to the valuation of stock options; they'll almost always be worthless unless your company is sold or goes public.

* Net assets above ~$175k are taxed at 0.85% p.a, primary residence contributes only 25% of its market value to net assets

* 29% capital gains tax, primary residence is exempt as is most tax income from renting out primary residence. Sell your home with $1 million profit? No tax.

* 22% tax on capital gains or "general" incomes that are not linked to securities ownership. Relatively small amounts are collected through this bracket.

* On average ~$10k tax on all new motor vehicles, electric vehicles currently exempt

* A tax of approximately 30% (~5 NOK per liter) is applied to gasoline, in addition to the 25% VAT. Annual tax of ~$1000 on all motor vehicles, increasing with how good the vehicle is. Electric vehicles currently exempt.

* Various taxes on alcohol, tobacco, air travel. Some municipalities have a property tax on the order of ~$500 p.a. for an average residence.

I've eyeballed most of the currency conversions.

Withdrawals from the oil fund amounted to 17.4% of the total state budget of Norway in 2018. (This is in the neighborhood of 3% of the fund size). This is the only "oil money" that is used on the government budget -- incomes from taxation of petroleum companies are put into the fund, never used directly.

Taxation in general is very high, at approximately 55% of the gross domestic product. We could fund plenty of social welfare programs on tax revenue alone.

The electorate in the US would not accept a tax burden that is close to that of the Scandinavian countries.

The government is not allowed to use more than 4% (return on investment), in practice today this is close to 2% because the return on the fund is lower these days.

The US produces 10x the oil Norway does, and was producing significant amounts of oil as far back as the 1860s.

We've had that profit stream, we just let it get captured by private corporations (or in Alaska's case, given away to garner votes).

Population of Norway, 2017: 5.258 million

Population of United States, 2018: 327.2 million

Shoulda been taxing any extraction of non-renewable resources into a fund like this. The whole country—literally, the physical country—gets poorer when that stuff's taken out. Shame we didn't capture some of that value for public, shared, long-term benefit.

[EDIT] all non-renewables, that is, not just oil. Should easily make up the difference between population and extracted natural resource value vs. Norway.

That makes a lot more sense than taxing people’s work.

Using the "US exports 3x as much oil as Norway" figure from the sibling comment, does that mean a comparable fund in the US could be $3000B, or $9k/person?

Still sounds like quite the missed opportunity.

Discovery of oil in the United States: 1859.

Discovery of oil in Norway: 1969.

Imagine if we'd have had the foresight to take Norway's approach that natural resources are the nation's natural resources and let the returns build for 160 years.

We used ours to build an automobile-based economy. We didn't exactly lose out on the deal. The unfortunate discovery that CO2 contributes to global warming came much, much later. But at any rate, American economic dominance largely depends on infrastructure and mass market autos.

And? The point still stands that the different conception of property rights in the US allows the revenue of natural resources like oil to go to corporations instead of the nation. Even in cases where the resources are on public land the licenses for extraction are often a pittance compared to what the company will make.

The Us exports 3x times as much oil as Norway

Norway is 5 million people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_expor...

The fund is based on oil production, not just exports. The US has a lot of oil that is not exported compared to Norway

I think Alaska's system is fine. I don't think it's morally worse to give people their money up front instead of holding on to it "for them" but only letting the majority decide how to spend it.

I do wonder if Canada could have been like Norway for the same reasons.

And Canada has more than just oil.

But a lot of it seems to be privately squandered.

Alberta has one - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberta_Heritage_Savings_Trust...

Works out to $4k per person in the fund currently.

The argument could be made that it’s because they spent the money on long-term assets, but I’d argue they spent it on lower taxes.

Even worse: Canada has actually paid US companies to come take our oil. I feel like all we had to do was charge a very high extraction rate (calculated where 20% of the profit is more than enough to fully restore the ecosystem), have stringent rules in place about pollution, then actively use funds to clean up the environment

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