Tax for personal taxpayers

Name: Tax for personal taxpayers
Topic: Income and consumption

Division for income and social welfare statistics

National, regional, counties and municipalities.

Annual. Preliminary figures for the fiscal year are released during the second quarter of the subsequent year. Final figures for the fiscal year are released during the fourth quarter of the subsequent year.

Collected and revised data are stored securely by Statistics Norway in compliance with applicable legislation on data processing.

Statistics Norway can grant access to the source data (de-identified or anonymised microdata) on which the statistics are based, for researchers and public authorities for the purposes of preparing statistical results and analyses. Access can be granted upon application and subject to conditions. Refer to the details about this at Access to data from Statistics Norway.

The purpose of the statistics is to provide an overview of the tax settlement for personal taxpayers, including taxable income, income deductions and taxable wealth, as well as taxes and tax credits for people with a tax obligation in Norway.

Statistics Norway has prepared annual statistics on the municipal tax assessment since 1884 and on the central government tax assessment since 1936.

Until fiscal year 1948, forms with summary reports filled out by the tax committees in each tax district constituted the source of the tax statistics. In 1948, Statistics Norway began obtaining copies of tax lists and processing them by machine to obtain information on the individual taxpayer as well. However, this became too comprehensive, and in the early 1950s, Statistics Norway switched to selecting a representative sample from the tax lists.

1967 saw the entry of register-based tax results for the individual person on magnetic tape. The tax settlement register is one of the oldest electronic registers at Statistics Norway and is obtained each year for the previous fiscal year from the Norwegian Tax Administration.

The first tax return statistics were prepared for the fiscal year 1993. That year, all tax offices switched to computer processing of returns, and information from the personal tax return became available in electronic form. The tax return register for the previous fiscal year is obtained each year from the Norwegian Tax Administration.

The statistics provides the majority of microdata for the statistics on income and wealth for households. Also, the statistics provides microdata for Statistics Norway’s tax microsimulation model, "LOTTE", which calculates changes in tax revenue resulting from changes in the rules of taxation.

The statistics is used to calculate changes in tax revenue on behalf of the Norwegian Ministry of Finance. Other ministries, counties and municipalities, the research environments, the media, private enterprises, and persons, are also frequent users of the statistics.

The statistics is constructed from detailed microdata, which can be the basis for other views and distributions than what is published by Statistics Norway.

No external users have access to statistics before they are released at 8 a.m. on ssb.no after at least three months’ advance notice in the release calendar. This is one of the most important principles in Statistics Norway for ensuring the equal treatment of users.

The statistics provides an important basis for all of Statistics Norway’s statistics concerning income and wealth.

Tax for personal taxpayers and income and wealth for households differs in important ways. While tax for personal taxpayers measures taxable income and assets for individuals, income and wealth for households measures the real income and wealth situation in households.

Thus, tax for personal taxpayers is based on the taxable value of assets, while income and wealth for households is based on the market value of assets.

Demographic information is obtained from Statistics Norway’s population statistics. Until 2023, residents in the population statistics were used to define the resident population in the tax statistics, so that the number of residents at the end of the fiscal year would be the same in the two statistics.

Starting with 2024, tax for personal taxpayers defines its resident population based on the persons for whom tax information is received, so that the population is taxable residents at the end of the fiscal year. The number of taxable residents in the tax statistics may therefore differ somewhat from the number of residents in the population statistics.

The statistics are developed, produced and disseminated pursuant to Act no. 32 of 21 June 2019 relating to official statistics and Statistics Norway (the Statistics Act).

The statistics is a part of the national program for official statistics, under the topic Income and consumption, as Tax for personal taxpayers.

Tax for personal taxpayers is based on data from the ordinary tax assessment. The data contains information on all persons aged 13 and older, who are taxable to Norway during the fiscal year in question. The age cut-off limit stems from the fact that children who are 13 years and older during the fiscal year, must file a tax return if they have had employment income. If the child is 12 years or younger during the fiscal year, the employment income shall be listed in the parents’ tax return.

The statistics cover all individuals in the tax assessment - including those who are living abroad and who are taxable to Norway. From the fiscal year 1999, individuals taxed on Svalbard are also included in the statistics.

For the fiscal years 2003-2008 and 2010, statistics for wage earners and pensioners were released in June. Persons with income from self-employment and wage earners/pensioners who were married to private entrepreneurs or were difficult to process, who were taxable in advance, got their tax settlement and statistics released in the autumn.

From the fiscal year 2011, tax settlements are reached continuously throughout the summer, and the release of statistics for wage earners and pensioners in June ceased. Until 2024, preliminary figures for taxable income from wages, pensions and benefits were released in the second quarter of the subsequent year. Starting from the fiscal year 2025, the preliminary statistics are expanded to include interest income and expenses, as well as taxable wealth in housing, bank deposits, and share savings accounts.

When the statistics is published, the population has often been limited to taxable persons, 17 years of age and older, who are registered as residents of the country as of December 31st of the fiscal year. The limitation was set to 17 years of age because this is the age individuals normally begin filing tax returns.

Until 2023, all residents were included in tax for personal taxpayers, regardless of registered tax information. From 2024, the resident population is defined on the basis of registered tax information.

The tax settlement register contains individual level information on the amounts of income and wealth that are used to calculate taxes to the municipality-, county- and state level, as well as taxes, social security fees and deductions.

The tax return register contains individual level information on taxable income, income deductions, assets, and debt.

Demographic information is obtained from Statistics Norway’s population statistics.

From the fiscal year 2009, the tax settlement register, the tax return register, income, and wealth, were unified in statistics with joint publication. For the fiscal years 2010 to 2014, information from certificates of pay and tax deductions (LTO), which summarises wages, benefits, and tax deductions, was also included in these statistics. From the fiscal year 2015, equivalent information is obtained from the tax return register.

From the fiscal year 2018, data was collected partially from the Norwegian Tax Administration’s new solution for the tax return register, SIRIUS, and the old solution, SL. Gradually, more people were transferred to the new tax return register, and from the fiscal year 2022, the statistics were solely based on the new tax return register.

The tax settlement register is continuously collected in electronic form from the Norwegian Tax Administration as the processing of tax settlements is completed, until Statistics Norway decides on a point in time which serves as representative for the population, and thus suitable for data extraction – usually connected with the fact that all taxpayers have received at least one tax settlement.

The tax return register is continuously collected in electronic form from the Norwegian Tax Administration from when taxpayers are notified of their first draft tax return. Thereafter, information about changes in the tax returns is continuously collected, until Statistics Norway decides on a point in time which serves as representative for the population, and thus suitable for data extraction – usually connected with the fact that all taxpayers have received at least one tax settlement.

Editing is defined here as checking, examining, and amending data. Several machine controls are carried out at Statistics Norway to ensure the consistency of the data material. Amounts in the tax return register are moved between the items, when possible, to achieve consistency between the calculation basis for the taxes and tax amounts in the tax settlement register.

Due to the large number of observations and entries in the data material, it is not practically possible to carry out all consistency controls at the individual level. Nor can several of the given variables be controlled against other statistics because they are only available in the registers that are used in these statistics. The controls will therefore not uncover all errors in the data material.

The statistics provide an overview of the number of persons registered with amounts, and the sum, average, and median for the various items. The statistics further provide tables for income, wealth, and tax, sorted by intervals, deciles, and quartiles. All averages are rounded to the nearest NOK 100.

Interviewers and everyone who works at Statistics Norway have a duty of confidentiality. Statistics Norway has its own data protection officer.

Statistics Norway does not publish figures where there is a risk of identifying individual data about persons or households.

The «suppression» method is used in these statistics to ensure this, which means that if a variable is divided so that there are fewer than 11 observations, figures for this division are not published.

More information can be found on Statistics Norway’s website under Methods in official statistics, in the ‘Confidentiality’ section.

The tax settlement register is comparable back to 1948. No differentiation was made between personal and non-personal taxpayers for earlier years. Also, there has been changes in the items of the tax return.

Both the data basis and principles for the statistics have been changed over time. The changes that the tax system has undergone over the years are reflected in the data basis and affect the continuity of the time series.

Mutual funds and share savings accounts

Until 2015, wealth in mutual funds were split into two items on the tax return: 4.1.4 units in stock funds, including all mutual funds with at least one stock, and 4.1.5 units in bond and money market funds, including funds with no stocks. In 2016, these items were merged into 4.1.4 units in mutual funds. In 2017, the item was split into 4.1.4 capital assets in mutual funds – share component and 4.1.5 capital assets in mutual funds – interest component, due to lower valuation of the share component in the wealth tax.

From 2017, it is possible to own listed stocks, mutual funds with a stock share of at least 80 per cent, and listed funds in companies within the EEA, via a share savings account. Before 2019, one had to pay tax continuously on dividends from stocks in share savings accounts. From 2019, this is only taxed when dividends are withdrawn from the accounts. In addition to the fact that information on partial dividends then ceased to exist, it is also not possible to distinguish between income from the sale of stocks, and income from dividends.

The transition to the new solution for the tax return register meant that the distinction between securities registered in the central securities depository and securities registered outside the central securities depository disappeared. From 2019, these have been merged.

More details about various changes are documented in note nr. 99/13 Selvangivelsesstatistikk 1993-1996 (in Norwegian only).

Tax for personal taxpayers is based on a point in time, when all individuals who are taxable to Norway have received at least one tax settlement. For the relevant fiscal year, tax returns can be processed, and tax settlements reached, after the point in time when Statistics Norway makes its data extraction. Changes in income, wealth and tax which results of these settlements, will not be part of the statistics.

One possible source of error is incorrect reporting by the respondents to the tax authorities, i.e. persons who report incorrect amounts for income, wealth, deductions or debt, in the tax return and in attached schedules, or that the amounts are entered in the wrong place on the form. In most cases this will be discovered and corrected by the tax authorities.

A revision is a planned change to figures that have already been published, for example when releasing final figures as a follow-up to published preliminary figures. See also Statistics Norway’s principles for revisions.

Revision is not relevant for these statistics.