Arne O. Holm says A Good Tax Proposal Which Should Also Be Used Where It Is Most Urgently Needed

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Tax is one of the most important, perhaps the most important, governance instruments a government has. However, the willingness to actively use it varies. In Norway, the tax debate revolves primarily around the size of the wealth tax. That is the way of the world when lobbyists and wealthy voices dominate the debate.

Raffle

However, the Norwegian Minister of Finance, Jens Stoltenberg, will now explore whether tax can also be used to reach those who have fallen behind in the ordinary working life, not just those with the biggest fortunes.

With the help of a raffle, the MoF suggests providing tax relief of up to NOK 27,500 to 100,000 randomly selected young people between the ages of 20 and 35. In doing so, he will investigate whether tax is a measure that can lift young people out of the welfare system and into the workforce.

We need the labor, and we need to cut in the welfare budget. The offer does not go out to everyone between 20 and 35 years old to see whether such initiatives are effective before it is presented to the entire age group.

Had the offer been given to everyone at once, it would have been extremely costly, without knowing beforehand if it would have had an impact.

Such experiments are well-known in medical research, for example, but are less known, if not entirely unfamiliar, in the context of tax policy.

Loud voices

I, in contrast to most of the opposition parties, am positive about the proposal. Wherever I go, loud voices caution against young people on welfare, but none of the implemented measures have had any significant impact so far.

Another familiar trope for us who belong to what is humorously called the "conference-prone sector" is the population decline in the North, or Arctic, if you like. There is particular loud concern about the situation in Finnmark, both in the government and among the population.

Measured by the number of reports of concern, an astonishingly few impactful measures have been implemented. Especially since this situation concerns national security.

If a fisherman had come home from the sea, year after year, with no catch, he would quite quickly set his nets somewhere else.

In the North, changing governments have largely continued using the same catchment method without even being close to turning the declining population around.

There is important knowledge to be found in the MoD's willingness to utilize tax as a measure to turn a literal dangerous development around.

Because, rightly enough, it is unacceptable that so many young people have fallen behind in the workforce. Still, it is directly dangerous for national security if the flow of people from the North to the South continues.

Let's start

And that does not just apply to Finnmark.

But let's start in Finnmark, as an experiment along the lines of a raffle. And feel free to call it a trial scheme to find out whether real tax cuts have any impact on population numbers.

There are currently 75,000 inhabitants in Finnmark. 38,000 of these are working, which is far fewer than the number of young people who may be offered tax relief. If we were to exempt this group from income tax for three years, we would have a clear answer to whether taxes can solve the issue that no party program or political decision has been able to address.

Should the measure work as intended, it could later be extended to apply to the part of Norway that is still referred to as Norway's most important area of investment.

If not, the scheme will be discontinued in the same manner as the tax relief for young people outside the workforce would. And I would, after many years, stop nagging about tax as an input factor in the North.

Jens Stoltenberg should be commended for thinking new and for using tax actively to reach specific and ideal political aims.

This creativity should be expanded and utilized where it is most urgently needed.