Hi All,

I am looking forward for some answers for the queries below. Please help me .

1> Is there any tax refunds / concessions for unemployed spouse in Norway? If so how much?

2> What are the tax benefits in Norway?

Regards,
Indrajit

Tax in Norway is simple:

1. Gather together all your money.
2. Put it in an envelope
3. Send it to the taxman.

Tax in Denmark is similar, except you have to send more money.

I live in Denmark and can confirm that you earn a fortune and then give it all to the government and spend what little is left in the very poor and very overpriced supermarkets.

As far as I know, the tax is a little lower in Norway, but the supermarkets are even worse and more expensive.

If you can stand the never endingly dark and cold winter, it seems like an awsome place to live. However, I didn note that in my father-in-laws Norwegian cycling magazine, they were all wearing winter gear all through the summer months…

I’ve been living in Norway for about 2 years now. I’m not sure about unemployed spouses but I think you do get some sort of rebate if you are supporting your partner. Certainly you get something if you have any kids.

I’ve been getting a 10% discount on my tax because I was kind enough to move here. I can’t remember if this is for 2 years or 3 years though.

You also get a tax rebate on the interest you pay on any loans (mortgage, car loans etc) making it worthwhile to buy rather than rent. You’ll also probably pay less on your mortgage than you would on rent. I’ve found property prices to be roughly the same as what you would pay in a nice area of Glasgow.

Things are expensive here due to a sales tax of 25% which is also applied to food. Alcohol tax is very high. However, what is taxed is the alcohol content rather than the price you pay for it. So, the upshot of that is that I drink much more single malt whisky and decent beer because the relative price isn’t all that much different from a bottle of cheap vodka.

The other good thing is that I make roughly twice as much as I would in the UK and so do most of my friends.

This is all for Trondheim, by the way. Where are you thinking about?

I have been offered in Oslo, and my offer is 430000 NOK, and I was little sceptical about this.

Am also from India, so I am not sure if I would be able to buy/mortgadge a flat, not sure about the laws.

I don’t know exactly how to put this, but Scandinavia is not the most rcailly tolerent place on earth.

I don’t really want to go into details for fear of being flamed, but try to find out if there are other Indians you can speak to in a similar situation and see how they have settled into the place…

I don’t really want to go into details for fear of being flamed, but try to find out if there are other Indians you can speak to in a similar situation and see how they have settled into the place…

Unfortunately there is some truth in this- I had a year in Norway and 4 in Denmark, although Oslo is probably your best bet for multiculturalism. Denmark has a lot of gang/race violence around cph area

An Indian person asking for advice on tax in Norway, on an English mountain biking forum, and getting it fairly promptly – marvellous!

Have a look here

taxnorway.no

also depends on if your job offer is permanent or a temporary position. you may struggle to get a mortgage on a salary of 430,000 NOK for a property in Oslo. I would guess on that sort of salary without any tax rebates for loans you will get around 21,000 NOK per month.

Hi,
I’ve been living over here in Norway now for over 3 years and the tax is high, but i can’t say i mind too much as i believe you do see it back in public services ( well more than you would in Britain).
Sorry but i can’t help about any tax details as i could be 100%, I started my own freelance photography company a couple of years a go and its not easy.
What I would say is house prices and rent are crazy in Oslo, we lived there for a year in my wifes 37 square metre apartment which we sold in 2007 for 150,000 quid! I live about 50 minutes outside in a place called Askim.
But to cut to the chase, Norway is a great country, Oslo is a really cool city. We lived in the centre and i could get on my bike and with in 20 minutes could be out in the foresty hills surrounding. Not too many capital cities you can do that!

An Indian person asking for advice on tax in Norway, on an English mountain biking forum, and getting it fairly promptly – marvellous!

From a Scotsman no less 😉

I reckon you should be pretty comfortable on 43,000 NOK although I’m not sure about house prices / rental in Oslo.

As far as the racial thing goes, again, I’m not sure about Oslo but Trondheim is OK to a certain extent. It’s a big University town so it attracts a lot of international students. What does seem to be typical amongst Norwegians is that they are much less concious of racism as being important, probably because they aren’t really used to having a lot of foreigners yet. For example, if someone is having a fancy dress party then people think nothing of blacking up and going as a the Jackson 5 or something. They make racist comments to their black friends but in much the same way as you would to a short person or ginger person etc.

That’s in Trondheim though, I have heard that things are maybe a bit more tense in Oslo.

Denmark has a lot of gang/race violence around cph area

Rubbish.

Rubbish.

Sorry to have replied in a rude way. But … I see this said a bit, but I honestly challenge you to support it. Compared with anywhere in the UK even the grimmest parts of CPH are a cake-walk, whatever your race.

Totally agree with DrJ about the dangers of living in CPH. There are a coupe of incidents a year that the media make a fuss about and the right wing (for Denmark) politicians balme on the “darkies”

This must be one of the safest countries in Europe and I expect that Norway is much the same. I was not refering to crime or danger with relation to racism. It is just that there is an underlying problem that Scandinavians don’t seem to trust people who don’t look like themselves. It amazes me but they still refer to things like 2nd and 3rd generation imigrants as causing problems.

Sorry guys, they are Danes if their parents were born in Denmark and they only speak Danish (and English of course :-))

Compared with anywhere in the UK even the grimmest parts of CPH are a cake-walk

Rubbish. Compared with anywhere in the UK? 🙂

Relevant article on Sweden

But this isn’t Beirut or Baltimore. It isn’t even Tower Hamlets. I was told at Lund University that a foreign graduate student who lived in Rosengård for a couple of years couldn’t understand why anyone would call it a ghetto. He came from Liverpool. Certainly, I can’t think of another slum in Europe that has broad, well-signposted cycle paths on which stately middle-aged women in headscarves pedal their groceries home.

It isn’t even Tower Hamlets.

I’m from Tower Hamlets! 🙂

Racism in Norway, hmmm…

I had a Norwegian gf when I was at Uni. Been there several times. Love the place. Found the people to be on the whole very friendly and welcoming. Stayed in a small town (Kongsvinger) which surprised me because there were quite a few Brown people living there. There was even an Asian grocers!

Oslo: More cosmopolitan, more non-Vikings. I was warned about an area called Grønland, near the central station. I don’t know why. I thought it was a nice place. But there is an undercurrent of fear and resentment, stirred up sadly by the Islamaphobia that is sweeping the Western World. Sikhs and Hindus suffer as a result of this. Norway does have it’s far-right wing neo-nazis, but they are very much in the minority. Most Norwegians these days are educated to a better standard than the average Brit, and are therefore more open-minded and tolerant. It’s a small country, population wise, and you’d expect ‘small town’ mentality, but I din’t find that. The only bit of nastiness I experienced was from some farm boys out in town on a Saturday night, but their ignorance towards me was met by overwhelming disgust from everyone else in the bar we were in. I was really surprised at this reaction from the majority, and wouldn’t expect that here in the UK, certainly not in a similar sized town.

I’m not saying there aren’t problems. But I think what isolated problems there are, make bigger headlines in a country which is pretty tame, compared to the UK. There have been problems with the Lappish communities, and this is a stain on Norway’s (and the rest of Scandinavia’s) history. Anywhere you go, you will get ignorant racist scum. But most Norwegians are nice people.

It is just that there is an underlying problem that Scandinavians don’t seem to trust people who don’t look like themselves.

I don’t believe this. I don’t look like a ‘Scandinavian’, yet I got on fine there.

Being Brown is sometimes a bonus; the hot blonde ladies find you ‘exotic’… 😉

It’s my experience of living in Denmark for 5 years and an old school friend of mine has a similar opinion. She lives in CPH and her parents are Indian so it is first hand.

I am not talking about hatred or violence, just mistrust and an unwillingness to completely accept coloured people as part of the population. I think you may not have noticed it as a visitor, but living and working in the country is a different matter.

an unwillingness to completely accept coloured people as part of the population

…

I’m talking about my experience of Norway, not Denmark. The Scandinavian countries are very different to each other, unlike most common perception.

I think you may not have noticed it as a visitor

I think I did. As I said, there are problems. But nowhere near the scale of places like France, Poland, Ireland, Austria etc. And I talked to many people in Norway, including Black, Brown and Oriental. They all said that by and large, racism was hardly an issue to them.