I warned you! Here's my first non-English-language scouting. About rural Norwegian tax politics no less.
The northern municipality Bø has been struggling with a declining population and worsening economy for decades, and it's gotten a lot of media attention here in Norway after they decided to cut taxes in an attempt to attract rich people. It's been somewhat successful, so far attracting 7 new wealthy citizens (the most famous being Bjørn Dæhlie, winner of 12 olympic medals and 17 world championship medals in cross-country skiing) who have all bought homes in Bø and officially moved there.
This article provides images of the 7 homes, comments from those of the owners the journalists were able to get in touch with (none of them were home when the writers knocked on the doors), and a brief interview with the mayor.
That interview includes the following nugget:
The state has abandoned us. Therefore we have to focus on private citizens instead.
Which makes me very tempted to try to get in touch with the mayor and remind him that his own conservative party has controlled the government for 7 years now! The state abandoning rural municipalities is exactly what he's been fighting for his entire political career.
The article also mentions the risk of this setting off a tax-policy race to the bottom, with municipalities around Norway under-bidding each other in an attempt to attract the ever-more-freeloading upper class.
I warned you! Here's my first non-English-language scouting. About rural Norwegian tax politics no less.
The northern municipality Bø has been struggling with a declining population and worsening economy for decades, and it's gotten a lot of media attention here in Norway after they decided to cut taxes in an attempt to attract rich people. It's been somewhat successful, so far attracting 7 new wealthy citizens (the most famous being Bjørn Dæhlie, winner of 12 olympic medals and 17 world championship medals in cross-country skiing) who have all bought homes in Bø and officially moved there.
This article provides images of the 7 homes, comments from those of the owners the journalists were able to get in touch with (none of them were home when the writers knocked on the doors), and a brief interview with the mayor.
That interview includes the following nugget:
Which makes me very tempted to try to get in touch with the mayor and remind him that his own conservative party has controlled the government for 7 years now! The state abandoning rural municipalities is exactly what he's been fighting for his entire political career.
The article also mentions the risk of this setting off a tax-policy race to the bottom, with municipalities around Norway under-bidding each other in an attempt to attract the ever-more-freeloading upper class.