Property investor Geir Hove (63) had a fortune of NOK 4 billion at the start of 2024, the website Kapital estimates. He is one of Bergen’s richest. Through the Realforum Gruppen, he owns a number of large and well-known properties in the city centre, such as: Zachariasbryggen houses seven bars and is close to the Bryggen in the center of Bergen. The meat bazaar near Fløyen was built in 1877 in neo-Romanesque style, and is also a well-known landmark in Bergen. Today it houses a café, a bar and several restaurants.Torgallmenning 9 and 10 in the center of Bergen’s main pedestrian street. These house a cafe and several shops. Now most of the shares in the company have been transferred together with the taxable assets to his son Mathias Toppe Hove in Switzerland. The father Geir lives in Bergen, and retains control of the company through a minority of so-called A shares. The result is that he saves millions in wealth tax. – Without making this move, I could not have competed in the Norwegian property market against those who have moved out and no longer pay property tax, he says to news. In an interview with Bergens Tidende last year, Hove said that it is as if actors abroad “get to compete in spiked shoes, while the rest of us have to use slalom boots”. – As for Mathias, he thrives so well in Switzerland that I fear he will stay there. But I hope for mass immigration from Switzerland to Norway after the next general election. Mathias Toppe Hove moved to the city of Lucerne last August. Photo: ARND WIEGMANN / Reuters Believes it is hopeless to stay Several of Bergen’s largest billion-dollar fortunes have been transferred from Norway to Switzerland in the past two years. According to Finansavisen, more than 40 percent of the country’s largest assets are now managed from abroad. Hove believes that the situation is hopeless for those who chose to remain in Norway when the emigration wave started in 2022. – At the same time as interest rates have made commercial property far less valuable, wealth and property tax eats up what can be reinvested in green conversion. Hove owns both Hotel Norge (pictured) and Clarion Hotel in Bergen. Photo: Agnieszka Iwanska After he renovated the landmark Hotel Norge building in central Bergen, the property tax went from NOK 1.8 to 4.1 million per year because the building was reassessed, says Hove. – That tax must be paid regardless of whether I have a good profit that year. – This is not about increasing wealth or saving personal tax. This is about securing the company’s future. I don’t need more money myself, so to speak, says Hove. The tax lists for 2023 are not ready yet. But in 2022, Hove had a net worth of over NOK 1 billion, and a net income of almost NOK 4 million. The calculated tax was then NOK 13 million. Economist: – Hardly a good thing Are Oust is a professor at the NTNU School of Business, and is deputy head of the university’s Center for housing and environmental economics. – Norwegian actors pay wealth tax in Norway, while foreign actors basically do not, he says to news. Oust does not think it is a coincidence that most of the wealthy who have moved out of Norway are precisely property investors. Photo: NTNU – You can then, for example, move to Switzerland, and then you will let it go. It may simply be a smart decision for private or business finances. – But it is not a good thing for Norwegian cities that those who “own them” move out of the country, he says further. – It’s about what we call “home bias”, meaning that you invest the most where you live. So over time it will be harmful. And not least: – We lose tax revenue from these people, and it works from day one. Will not remove the wealth tax Oust believes the pattern of migration we have seen recently may be about the Norwegian government setting the tax level too high. – In the TV series Sopranos, it is said about the mafia business: “You mustn’t drain them too much, because then we can’t come back and drain them the next day too”. – It is possible to think this way about taxation of the rich as well. If you touch too hard, they will move. We saw that in Sweden in the 70s and 80s. Many left and never came back. The finance minister told VG on Wednesday that there was “something un-Norwegian about the idea of removing wealth tax”. Photo: William Jobling / news Hot political topic Wealth tax in Norway has been a source of much debate in recent weeks. – It seems that there is now a dawning understanding that property taxation in Norway must be changed, wrote the head of Civita, Kristin Clemet in an Aftenposten comment on Sunday. She then pointed to new signals from one of the deputy leaders of the Green Party, Ingrid Liland, who had expressed that she wanted to mobilize more private capital for the green shift. Voices in the Center Party and the Labor Party have also said they are willing to look at an adjustment of the tax, including Anniken Huitfeldt. But Finance Minister Trygve Slagsvold Vedum (Sp) shot down the speculation in VG on Thursday: – I am not going to remove the wealth tax. It will shift the tax burden from the richest to most people. We will never participate in that, he told the newspaper.
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Property investor Geir Hove moves his fortune to his son in Switzerland – news Vestland
