Norway's lesson for Europe on wealth taxes: let some millionaires go

https://www.reuters.com/business/norways-wealth-tax-trades-millionaires-equality-2025-11-24/

by wslh • 8 months ago

16 17 8 months ago

rini176• 8 months ago

Why is 1% of net wealth such a big deal? Are the richest using some kind of leverage that balloons net wealth and makes it too onerous to pay?

rufus_foreman2• 8 months ago

I'm planning for retirement. One rule of thumb is that you can spend 4% of your investable net worth a year, there are people that say that is too high and 3% would be a safer number.

Now you want to take 1% a year in wealth taxes on top of the capital gains taxes and income taxes I would pay. So either I now have to spend 25% or 33% less a year in retirement, or I work another half decade.

I vote no. If the US state I live in did that, I would move to another state.

yfw• 8 months ago

Bracketing would solve all of that. Im pretty sure the spirit of this is not to tax working class people into relying on a pension.

Im sure everyone agrees Jeff Bezos shouldnt be taxed the same as someone who needs retirement planning

rini176• 8 months ago

You would vote no even if you got free healthcare in exchange?

Arnt3• 8 months ago

There are a couple of problems.

If you own a business, ie. not a small fraction of a listed company but your own business, then all is well so long as you make a nice profit every year. But if you have a string of lean years and run out of liquid assets, the taxman's assessed value of your business doesn't change and the taxman will insist that you pay 1% of that. And you have no liquid assets. What do you do? The banks know that you have no liquid assets and are likely to have trouble repaying your loans, so if they lend you any money it's on poor terms.

Most small business owners know that lean times occur and aren't happy about being taxed in this way.

rini176• 8 months ago

the taxman's assessed value of your business doesn't change

That's first time I saw anything like this, usually in accounting the fixed assets depreciate so if there are lean years without much investment the assessed value should get down.

Like, are you saying when you buy a work truck for your business then after 5 years you'd be still paying 1% tax of its original price every year?

fluorinerocket• 8 months ago

So 12% of the population pays it? So more of a tax on the professional, works for a living, upper middle class?

mitchbob• 8 months ago

https://archive.ph/2025.11.24-161144/https://www.reuters.com...

silexia• 8 months ago

What a horrific nightmare. Drive all of your capital out of the country and start an epic brain drain.

Norway's lesson for Europe on wealth taxes: let some millionaires go

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