>The tax pays for public health care, welfare, free education, 49 week paid parental leave (100% of salary) and other benefits. If you compare with another country you need to include this in the cost of living.
None of those things would really benefit someone who only lived there for a year though.
That's like saying that owning a Mac didn't benefit you, because you needed a playstation to play some game. Then you go on implying that the Mac is not a good computer.
I never implied it wasn't a good computer, er, country. I'm saying it's completely understandable why GP would be upset at the country's absurdly high prices and saying "but look at all the stuff it pays for" isn't really relevant to him because he is not a citizen. Most countries do not tax foreigners that much unless they are working in the country.
To take the argument further, you could say may actual citizens don't benefit from it, for example if they live healthy, or don't have children, or pay for a private education, etc. Subsidies are rarely fair and create bad incentives.
> To take the argument further, you could say may actual citizens don't benefit from it, for example if they live healthy, or don't have children, or pay for a private education, etc. Subsidies are rarely fair and create bad incentives.
"Many citizens" and "Subsidies are rarely fair" seems horribly distorted in the context of free education and health care in Norway.
IMNHO you have a rather distorted idea of "fair" if you think that everyone should get the same, rather than that everyone should get what they need (or could benefit from). The two would only ever be the same in some fantasy realm where everyone started out on equal footing.
The biggest tax-and-subsize activity almost everywhere is children.
Maternity leave. Schools. Universities. Health related stuff is also often more subsidized and more expensive for children and pregnant women.
Norway has a negative (1.88) fertility rate which is typical of Northern European cultures, even with these big subsidies. I wonder what it would be unsubsidized.
Someone who only live there for a year also don't pay most of it. While they are affected by the VAT (which is not that out of line with Europe in general), most people do not spend all of their money on goods that are VAT chargeable. E.g. your rent is not. Last time I calculated the relative cost of taxation between Norway (where I'm from), the UK (where I live), and California (we were considering a move), VAT in Norway would have account for at most about 4% of my total living costs at my salary etc.
None of those things would really benefit someone who only lived there for a year though.