Tax statement, 1998

Entire country, continental shelf and Svalbard are included. Counties and municipalities

Annual.

Not relevant

Norwegian (Bokmål) and English.

The purpose of the statistics is to provide an overview of the tax settlement for personal taxpayers including how much tax was paid in advance, assessed taxes, advance refund with interest due and residual tax with interest to pay.

Also provided is an overview of the calculation basis for the various taxes in recent years, gross income and wealth taxes (before deductions and reductions are deducted) and the various deductions and reductions in taxes.

The statistics are used in the data basis in Statistics Norway's tax model LOTTE which computes changes in tax proceeds as a result of various changes in the tax rules. The statistics are also used for own calculations of tax proceeds requested by the Ministry of Finance.

Together with tax statistics for personal taxpayers and tax return statistics, the tax statistics for personal taxpayers are also presented in a separate chapter in the fiscal budget each year (Storting Proposition No. 1).

Statistics Norway has prepared annual statistics on the municipal tax assessment since 1884 and on the central government tax assessment since 1936.

Until fiscal year 1948 the source of the tax statistics was forms with summary reports filled out the tax committees in each tax district, but starting this year Statistics Norway began obtaining copies of tax lists and processing them by machine to obtain information on the individual taxpayer as well. This became too comprehensive for Statistics Norway and in the early 1950s SSB switched to selecting a representative sample from the tax lists.

1967 saw the entry of register-based tax results for the individual person on magnetic tape. The tax register is one of the oldest electronic registers at Statistics Norway and is obtained each autumn from the Directorate of Taxes after the tax results are completed.

Major users are the Ministry of Finance, municipalities and counties, research and policy institutes and the media.

While the tax statistics for personal taxpayers show the calculation basis for the various direct taxes the tax return statistics give more detailed information about the various taxable incomes.

In the tax statistics for personal taxpayers negative figures for ordinary income and net property are zeroed out since negative numbers do not entail taxation. On the other hand the tax return statistics have negative figures in these items. Consequently, the total of these two concepts deviates greatly between the two statistics. See also http://www.ssb.no/selvangivelse_en/

Together with the tax statistics for non-personal taxpayers the statistics for personal taxpayers are presented annually in "Overview of tax assessment" http://www.ssb.no/skattlign_en/

The tax statistics are the source of all statistics on assessed taxes and deductions and reductions in taxes for personal taxpayers. These statistics are also included in other statistics at Statistics Norway.

Income and property statistics for households, http://www.ssb.no/ifhus_en/

Income Statistics. Persons and families, http://www.ssb.no/inntpf_en/

In addition all information from tax statistics are incorporated in a large number of surveys such as

Survey of Living Conditions Health Interview Survey Population and Housing Censuses Survey of Housing Conditions

Statistics Act Section 3.2.

Not relevant

The tax statistics for personal taxpayers is a total census. The statistics are based on data from the ordinary tax assessments. The data basis contains individual data for all persons aged 13 and up who are taxable to Norway during the fiscal year in question. The age cut-off stems from the fact that children who are 13 and up during the fiscal year must file a tax return if they have employment income. If the child is 12 or under during the fiscal year the employment income shall be listed in the parents' tax return.

The statistics cover all individuals in the tax assessments, including those living abroad and who are taxable to Norway. From fiscal year 1999 individuals taxed on Svalbard are also included in the statistics.

The main source for the tax statistics for personal taxpayers is the tax register, which is obtained from the Directorate of Taxes each year after the assessment is released (cf. 2.1). This register contains information at the individual level of all calculation bases for the various direct taxes, income and wealth taxes of municipalities, counties and state and National Insurance Scheme members' contributions, in addition to the various deductions and reductions in taxes.

Various demographic data from Statistics Norway's population and education statistics are also added.

Total census.

The tax register is obtained in electronic form in November/December the year after the fiscal year.

As a rule the tax assessment is finished and made public in all municipalities in the country in the second half of September each year. In the weeks that follow changes are made in the tax assessment follows reviews of taxpayer complaints or because the tax authorities themselves discover errors or deficiencies in the tax material. Statistics Norway receives an extract of the tax register in November/December after all municipalities have been through at least one such round of corrections and changes.

As of assessment year 2003 Statistics Norway receives an extract at the time the tax assessment is made public, and before changes and corrections has been done.

A number of machine controls are carried out at Statistics Norway to ensure the consistency of the data material. Firstly, amounts are moved between the items when possible to achieve consistency between the calculation basis for the taxes and tax amounts. In addition, in some cases the assumptions are estimated on the basis of the size of the tax amounts if the assumptions lack or deviate too much in relation to a previously set margin of error. Macro figures from the tax statistics are finally compared with the Directorate of Taxes' summary overview to uncover any major deviations.

Due to the size of the data material, both with respect to the number of observations and number of amount fields, it is not practically possible to carry out all types of consistency controls at the individual level. Nor can several of the given variables be controlled against other statistics, as they are only listed in this extract from the Directorate of Taxes. The controls will therefore not uncover all errors in the data material.

Analysis unit per person. No special estimation method has been used.

The statistics are comparable back to 1948 (cf. 2). No differentiation was made between personal and non-personal taxpayers for earlier years. Both the data basis and principles for the statistics have been changed over time. The changes that the tax system has undergone over the year are reflected in the data basis and affect the continuity of the time series.