I believe that that is more of a temporary thing. A lot of rich people have been avoiding taxes by moving to Switzerland. They run a company in Norway for several years, then move to Switzerland when things are profitable and they want to avoid paying their taxes to society.

We pay tax on dividends in Norway, but if your company doesn’t pay out any dividends for 10 years then you don’t pay any taxes on them until the day you take the money out of the company. So you can run a company in Norway while paying quite little in taxes, then move to Switzerland and pay yourself all the dividends that have accumulated over the years. After 5 years you can move back and not have to pay a cent in taxes.

The new tax laws are just a temporary blocker that incentivises any current owners to move out of Norway move before the new laws come into effect.

That's incorrect based on my experience. The law exposes startup founders to large tax liabilities immediately after a financing. We've hired some of the top lawyers in Norway and the consensus is the only alternative is to relocate. There's plenty of articles about it in the Norwegian startup press.

Even better, you have to pay Norway on your unrealized capital gains but they won't credit you on future losses from the startup. Essentially they have socialized the profits and privatized the losses.

You are mixing two different taxes. The article is about the new exit tax. The other relevant tax is our wealth tax.

You don’t sound like a person who likes taxes much. In Norway they are very important since we have good infrastructure in most areas such as telecom, roads, trains, airports, electricity and water. We also have great healthcare. And lots of benefits for parents with children.

How is it temporary?

The effects that we are seeing now are temporary. Once the exit tax is in place there are no incentives to quickly leave the country.

What permanent effects it will have on the overall startup business is still to be seen.