Norway Sets 40% Female Quota for Boardrooms - EU may stop it

[Hodar]

...oh, and buy stock in their competition.

Lutefisk and pickled Herring??

[farlander]

ROFL. Yea that's about right, that's the *only* thing they make there aside from pumping oil from platforms.

[Chewbacca]

Just out of curiosity, if all the CEO board positions are occupied, do they have to:

A) Create more positions and suck more money from the company to pay the new salary of the female employee?

B) Fire some man who is actually working at his job to make the company successful and replace him with some woman that has no experience?

C) Wait for a man to leave or quit his CEO position and then higher a woman, and does she have to compete for the job with other people or is this a social welfare job that the woman gets because she has boobs?

[farlander]

This being socialist utopia, and noone should have to compete for anything, I think that part of "C" can be eliminated, but I think it's probably going to be "A", since companies are not stupid. I certainly wouldn't get rid of a well performing board member, and the deadline is looming - can't really wait for the guys to retire. There's no problem adding in additional ones that would not be listened to if not necessary, and just eat the cost as part of doing business in Norway. Not that I can see a reason in the damn world why anyone would keep anything open there.

[tomjohn77]

You probably have not noticed that all the Scandinavian countries are among the top ten in competitiveness. Also we have long tradition in Ship building and we export a lot of fish because of our fish farming skills.
Second obviously you have no info about the extensive write offs that can be done on your wage before you tax. Small private business owners probably earn twice as much as is listed on the statistics. At least I know examples of that.
One of Norways wealthiest men actually moved back from the US to Norway because of the extensive taxes. He got a better deal in Norway. It is said that the wealthiest people just tax around 10% because of write offs. I agree that this qouta is a stupid thing. Most people dont want it and I think it will be wrong move. One scenario is that the women in the boardroom will just be a fill up. They will have practically nothing to say. You also have a wrong view of cost efficiency in Norway. One of my friends was down in Germany to look at the same production line as in Norway. He was suprised of how many people they used compare to Norway. Also I have had Americans over in Norway that thought Norwegians were more committed to their jobs and looked more efficient. This coming from a republican voter.

[farlander]

Man, my father lives in Norway. I've been there. The fact you can't lay people off, welfare pays for just about anything for anyone, and, I'm not sure what the hell are you talking about in terms of taxes - my father's boss used to take less money home because he was in the higher tax bracket. You will NEVER convince me of Scandinavian country "competitiveness", or the supposed living standard. The whole "tax writeoffs", rich people only payin' 10%, etc etc, those are just things you hear/want to believe. We have the same thing here in the US, where we all believe that the "rich" pay very little taxes, etc.

For one, with your labor laws, I wouldn't open a grocery store in Norway, not to mention a high tech or mfg plant. You'd have to be crazy.

[You Dirty Rats]

One can imagine that, in theory, the Norwegian rules conflict with EU equality regulations," law professor Hans Petter Graver told Nationen.

Norway is not a member of the EU. EU regulations are no more binding on Norway than Scottish Law is on the US Senate or Foreign Law is on SCOTUS.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

State-owned firms have just 12 months to comply; the country's 650 public companies have three years.

If they already require quotas for other government jobs, what's the difference in requiring quotas for these government jobs?

[tomjohn77]

I am totally right. Actually just a couple of days ago my friend that is as old as me 27-28 showed me his real wage compare to what he was taxing. His real wage was twice as high as the one he was taxing. $120000. Also my dad was taxing just a third of his taxable wage of around $100000. Many of males that live in the small countryside neighborhood that I am from owned private business. All kind of small businesses. Some rents out houses and apartments. I tell you that real wage and taxable wage is extremely different. Many times I think it is probably much more than it says.
I have a feeling that you probably are not of Norwegian decent. People of non Norwegian decent usually have a much lower income than a Norwegian and an American that lives in Norway. Especially true for non EU countries and most of the rest of the world.
Did you know that an average American family living in Norway has $100000 left after all taxes are deducted.

[farlander]

You're correct, definitely not of Norwegian descent - southern european. In either case I don't claim that has anything to do with anything, and everything's a function of one's skills. I know that if I went to work in Norway, with my software architecture and management skills I should be way out there in the six digits, in the executive range.

I guess I don't know *for sure* how the taxes work out there for real, since my dad doesn't really make much and doesn't really have much to deduct either (nor do I do his taxes). All I know is in the past I've had to send him some money to help out and the bank took 25% on receipt as a "gift tax". My impression is taxes are sky high compared to what it is in the US. We have deductions here too.

[tomjohn77]

Yes taxes are too high and I know that. A regular person that is hired at a firm will pay higher taxes in Norway, but for private owners things aren't that bad as it seems. Up to last year a private owner would pay Zero tax on profits taken out in salary. Money earned on stocks were Zero taxed too.
Hey just one question. I just wonder how much of the debt can you deduct on your wage or salary. Just interested. Here its 28% of interest.

[farlander]

Ok, a private owner gets would pay 0% tax on what he pays himself as a salary !? That can't be right. The company won't pay taxes on that, but he will pay personal taxes on that. That's the same as here. You have no capital gains taxes or dividend taxes ? Really ? Are you sure ? If that is the case that's awesome! I could see then how the more well off folks would prefer being in Norway - most well off folks live off dividends from stocks. But that strikes me as very, very, very big news I never heard of. I'll have to google that.

I can deduct 100% of mortgage interest. Other debt (such as credit cards, car loans, etc) you can't deduct any interest.

[farlander]

Ok man, here's the real skinny, from your own govm't site :

http://odin.dep.no/fin/english/topics/p4500279/p4500281/006041-990058/dok-bn.html

Capital gains taxes - 28%
Dividend taxes - 28%

Salary is taxed as income, depending on which bracket you're in, and the highest one is WHOPPING 67% !!!!!! So if you're making real money, the government takes 2/3 of it. Wow.

In comparison, the US corporate rates are between 23-36%.
Dividend taxes are only 15%.
The highest income tax bracket is 36%.

So - if I strive to make real money, the government won't take it all away from me. Man... that's just insane. 67% !??

[tomjohn77]

I said up to last year. It used to be Zero before, but not know.

[farlander]

In either case the personal rates, self-employed, or otherwise, go all the way up to 67%. So, you tell me, why would I open a company in Norway, work my ass off to have it get off the ground, so that the goverment can ultimately take away 67% of my income from it, when I start making real money ? Why would anyone ?

[tomjohn77]

It is easy to just read facts and then think its like that. How strange that the stock market has been up so much latelly? I wish I could just get you some of the real numbers. They are posted every year on the internet. Then you can see how things really works.
I will give you two examples from 2002. I dont want to post any name, but as example. This is the three first on this income cite:

Assets Income tax
114 315 000 56 042 400 17 954 300
53 022 000 30 569 800 11 694 023
35 638 000 13 061 900 5 054 207

[tomjohn77]

If you want the whole page of names you can get it. Just do the math on these numbers

[tomjohn77]

Its nice that we can check up everybody on the Internet every year in Norway. Then its easier to see the real numbers.

[farlander]

Not sure what the numbers mean - can you elaborate ?

What is the Assets Income Tax ? Annual % of total assets ?

I guess what should I assume, that the govm't doesn't mean what it says when it says you owe 67% of your taxable income (after deductions, I guess, but still!).

[tomjohn77]

The first number is assets own by these guy. Second is income and third is his tax.