Norway's Wealth Tax Unchains a Capital Exodus
citizenx.com
citizenx.com
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.
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.
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.
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.
Like, if you relocate your headquarters from country X then country X nationalizes assets, or you are banned from operating in the country, etc.
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-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.)
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-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
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…
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?
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.
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.
FTFY
Corporations are only allowed to exist with consent of the public. Break the social contract and get fucked at your own peril.
At what point can we say people have contributed enough to help Norway?
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.
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.
This trend is increasing across the whole continent and it's extremely bleak. The only growth sector in all of Europe is government spending. Aging populations mean social outlays are increasing every year, while the private sector is being actively looted by governments, stifled, and chased away so the economy isn't growing enough to fund the increasing social welfare demands.
Somehow my child understands that money must be earned before it can be taken away and redistributed, but the adults with PhDs can't figure this one out.
It's a death spiral of deficits, political instability, and more stupid policy like increasing taxes in countries that already have the highest taxes in the world.
Luckily Norway has oil wealth so they could probably afford to completely kill their private sector and chase away all private capital. It will just deepen their status as a petro-state. Becoming white Saudi Arabia is a bizarre goal for socialist politicians who also claim to be "moral" and care about "the environment." But as the saying goes, the children of wealth tend to make dumb decisions.
The issue is taxing unrealized gains (stocks and property). You need post-tax money to pay taxes on the gross pre-capital-gains-tax value of assets before you make money on them. It’s highly punitive for certain kinds of entrepreneurs and portfolios, and fundamentally unfair.
Grading/graduating capital gains taxes to bake the pain into the process of realizing gains would make a lot more sense IMO. It’s not about dodging paying even an excess share, it’s about avoiding economic self-sabotage.
Immigration makes you feel weird about those things. My presence here was very transactional for the first 8 years. My right of residence was tied to my income and my good behaviour. I paid a lot of taxes and got very little in return. In fact a large portion of the government thinks I ought to fuck right off.
Nonetheless it's the system I chose and the system I believe in, so I'll gladly support it with my taxes. I am not the one who benefits, but I do it for The Greater Good.
Still, now I can become a citizen. I have all the documents; I just need to send them. But there are talks of rearmament and conscription. I need to ask myself how much I really owe this country that just takes and takes.
That's such a mean take. A fairer take is that they have already contributed - via income/gains taxes - and often because the company makes the country better off.
Wealth taxes are double taxation: you've worked to get rewards and then those rewards are rug-pulled from you.
Wealth taxes are also a lie: the Finland wealth tax rate of 1.1% appears so reasonable, however if your returns were 5% then the effective tax rate is fucking 22%.
If a country doesn't encourage businesses and business-owners, then the country goes to shit because there's nothing to tax (which pays for the goodness for everybody).
Disclaimer: I don't think all businesses are good or worthwhile. I do think that we need systems that deliver good compromises.
Edit: As voters we are asked to vote for party policy - however we are usually ignorant of the likely outcomes of policy. In my experience, very few people understand systems.
Obviously there needs to be a balance. Each country needs to find it's own balance. The Norwegians have chosen their balance. Not everyone will be happy.
The article mentions 54 billion net worth left the country. I guess we'd have to look at who left to make any comments regarding startup founders or regulation manipulators.
Yes, there is a balance. The default assumption is that the wealthy fuck over their countries. I'm not quite so cynical (e.g. I think Buffett is nothing like Ellison).
The article is super biased (the site helps rich people get second passports).
We've got a few billionaires in New Zealand. I have very little idea about their influence on our regulations (although I suspect Peter Jackson might have had a positive influence - he's certainly generally helped our economy).
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.
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.
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.
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.
Now you know which ones weren't really in Norway for the opportunities and the country lifestyle and values.
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.
Tax large properties and excessive luxury seems like one of the few methods could work, but it doesn't have the same reach.
opportunities? I live here, opportunities are slim at the moment, because of the economy, not the millionaires.
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.
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.
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/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...
So the citizenx site is falsely claiming the decrease in order to further its own agenda.
Maybe Norway is a better place now...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve
Practical tests have… not gone well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_experiment
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"?
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...)
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), so yes.
Yes, but I'm not disputing that, nor is that the substance of your attack on my comment. You attacked the Laffer curve, not the presupposition that the article is factually correct, which does not discredit or undermine the Laffer curve. At best, it only removes its relevance.
Those who assert the right value is super close to zero have also been repeatedly shown to be incorrect, but they keep trying. The US could probably double top marginal taxes and not reduce revenue.
It's hard to understand why they keep raising taxes.
Because they can do better things with it than buy a second megayacht.
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.
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.
Spending more oil money seems like a bad idea at this point.
[1]: https://www.riksrevisjonen.no/rapporter-mappe/no-2025-2026/r...
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.
"The shameless have won" is not the left's fault.
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.
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.
The democratic presidential candidates have given off the vibe of "if you don't vote for me, it's because you're a bad person." But what they don't seem to grasp is that makes them just look weak to ordinary people. The purpose of politics is strength and playing weak like this is a losing strategy.
Within an extended social scene with mutual obligations, say a political party, you can tell peers "you are being a bully and you should sit down." But the rest of the world doesn't respond to those messages. There are enemies to fight.
No? Your grandma getting her life savings stolen over the phone isn't a violent crime, but blaming her for not understanding how links in email can be misleading would be victim blaming. It needn't be violent, or even a crime. Shitty parents victim blame their kids for non-criminal things all the time.
Similarly, blaming the side that still feels and acts upon shame for the fact that the other side has gone fully shameless is victim blaming.
It is not helpful to blame your grandma who is the victim of a crime. It already happened.
It is important to lay blame to an organization for not fulfilling its primary function, because that prompts it to reorient.
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.