Payment of payroll taxes up 10 per cent

From January to July this year Norwegian employers paid NOK 38.6 billion in payroll taxes to social security. In money terms payments were up NOK 3.5 billion compared to the same period last year. Some of the reason for the rapid growth is higher employment and higher wages. At the same time, employee social security contributions increased by NOK 2 billion.

Tax revenues including oil taxes totalled NOK 173.9 billion in the first seven months of the year, up 4.1 per cent compared to the same period last year. The reason for the low growth is because tax revenues from the oil sector have dropped by 32.6 per cent compared to 1997, mainly because of lower oil prices.

So far this year, tax receipts excluding oil taxes broken down by county have increased by NOK 13 billion or 8.8 per cent. The growth has been consistently high throughout the country. Akershus and Rogaland have had the highest growth, with 11.1 and 9.9 per cent respectively. Nord-Trøndelag has had the lowest growth, with 5.5 per cent. There are large variations among the municipalities within the counties. Akershus is the only county in which all municipalities have reported higher tax revenues.

New Statistics

Tax accounts statistics, January-July 1998.
The statistics are published monthly in the Weekly Bulletin of Statistics. Main aggregates are available in the electronic edition of the Monthly Bulletin of Statistics. Tax revenue statistics for the individual municipalities are published in the Web edition of the Weekly Bulletin of Statistics and in Official Statistics of Norway (NOS) Regional Statistics. For more information, contact: tove.brynildsen@ssb.no, tel. +47 21 09 47 72, or rune.by@ssb.no, tel. +47 21 09 45 14.

Weekly Bulletin issue no. 34, 1998