[Skybird]

I'm putting this here, in lack of a bbetter suited thread.

Bravo! More of this! And across all Europe! The Neue Zürcher Zeitung writes:
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Industrial tycoon Kjell Inge Rökke is one of the richest Norwegians. But he will soon pay his taxes elsewhere.

Switzerland is centrally located, and Lugano is a beautiful city: This is the gist of a letter that the Norwegian industrial tycoon Kjell Inge Rökke sent on Monday to the "co-shareholders and employees" of his company empire. He let them know that he had moved to the same city.

It was a difficult decision, but now it has been made. His group of companies, Aker ASA, which is the country's largest private employer with around 18,000 jobs in Norway and as many worldwide, will of course continue to work in Norway. But he had learned during the pandemic that he could be active as a company leader even when he was not directly on the ground, Rökke wrote.

When Rökke, one of Norway's best-known captains of industry, moves from the posh western Oslo suburb of Asker to southern Switzerland, many millions in taxes disappear with him. The letter says nothing about this, but it was immediately clear to politicians and commentators that this was the reason. A professor emeritus of economics at the Oslo School of Economics did not mince his words: Rökke may extol the virtues of Switzerland, but everyone knows what it is really about. Rökke's move is a "frontal attack on the Norwegian wealth tax," he said.

This has been raised for the fiscal year 2022 by the Social Democrat-led government that has been in office for a year, in line with the Social Democrats' election promise to make the rich pay more for the common good. Prominent Norwegian Social Democrat Hadia Tajik commented on the fact that with Rökke a super-rich person was now leaving with the bitter words that he had thus decided to no longer contribute to the common interests of Norwegian society.

Of course, Rökke must have known that his departure would be interpreted as tax evasion. Therefore, he did not forget to mention in his letter that Lugano was neither particularly cheap nor particularly favorable in terms of taxes. Nevertheless, in the Ticino regulations for a solution based on lump-sum taxation, his specialists must have found a variant that appealed to him.

If one believes the speculations of the Norwegian business newspaper "Dagens Naeringsliv" ("DN"), Norway will lose its best taxpayer with Rökke. Since 2008, the newspaper wrote, Rökke has probably paid the treasury around 1.5 billion kroner, the equivalent of about 145 million Swiss francs, mainly through property tax.

In a recent interview with Rökke, "DN" accused the political left of acting as if it alone had a "moral compass. In doing so, he said, it escapes the fact that someone who has earned a fortune can also have moral and social values. He himself is prepared to use half of his fortune for philanthropic purposes. But he wants to be able to decide for himself and on the basis of his family's values.

Rökke can also point to the fact that he once moved to Norway with a considerable fortune. At the age of 21, he had emigrated to America and, according to his own account, without any education and initially without any means, had a brilliant business career in the fishing industry, which made him rich. When he was 42, he returned to Norway and made his mark there, not least as a supporter of the Social Democrats. Now, at 63, he wants to start a new phase of his life once again.

His departure sets alarm bells ringing among left-wing parties. It is quite possible that other super-rich people will follow Rökke's example. Not only does the government continue to back raising the wealth tax, while the opposition wants to reverse it. It is also apparently considering extending the current five-year period after which emigrants can opt out of the Norwegian tax system altogether.

A Norwegian tax expert told television that many wealthy people in Norway are aware that this period could become longer. For those planning to relocate for this reason, it is therefore "now or never." And there are apparently signals from the circles of tax lawyers that the number of requests for advisory services in this regard has recently increased.

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