Tax revenues up NOK 32 billion

Tax revenues in 1997 increased by 13.2 per cent compared to 1996, totalling NOK 276 billion. Oil taxes were the largest contributor to the higher tax receipts, accounting for more than NOK 13 billion or 41 per cent of overall growth.

A nominal increase of more than 10 per cent has occurred only twice before in this decade, in 1990 and 1996, when revenues grew 10.5 per cent.

Tax receipts excluding oil taxes totalled NOK 240 billion in 1997, an increase of NOK 18.7 billion. Oslo and Akershus County posted the highest growth in tax income, with 12.5 and 10.7 per cent, respectively. Telemark County reported the lowest increase, with 2.2 per cent.

Looking at the changes from 1995 to 1997, both Oslo and Akershus saw tax revenues increase by more than 20 per cent, with 26.9 and 22.9 per cent, respectively. Finnmark County in Northern Norway posted the lowest growth in tax receipts, with 10.8 per cent.

Oil taxes

Oil taxes paid in 1997 amounted to NOK 35.2 billion, an increase of 60 per cent. Tax revenues from oil activities have not been this high since 1985 and the reason for the growth in 1997 is higher oil and gas production combined with a high average oil price, measured in Norwegian kroner.

Local government

In 1997, the primary municipalities had tax revenues totalling NOK 58.1 billion, up NOK 3.4 billion or 6.3 per cent. This occurred despite the fact that the tax rate for ordinary income from personal taxpayers declined 0.25 per cent from 1996 to 1997. The tax rate in 1997 was 11.5 per cent for municipalities outside Oslo. For Oslo the rate was reduced by 0.5 percentage points to 18.25 per cent.

There were large individual differences in tax revenues among the municipalities, with only four counties outside Oslo (Akershus, Hedmark, Vestfold and Sør-Trøndelag) reporting higher tax receipts.

New Statistics

Tax account statistics, January-December 1997.
Statistics are published monthly in the Weekly Bulletin of Statistics. Tax revenue data for the individual municipalities are published in the electronic edition of the Weekly Bulletin of Statistics on the Web server and in the Official Statistics of Norway (NOS) Regional Statistics series. More information: Tove Brynildsen, tel. +47 21 09 47 72, e-mail: tbr@ssb.no, or Rune Bye, tel. +47 21 09 45 14, e-mail: rby@ssb.no.

Weekly Bulletin issue no. 4, 1998