Today, Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre (Ap) and Finance Minister Trygve Slagsvold Vedum (Sp) gather the entire government at the Prime Minister’s office to hammer out the state budget for 2024 at the last of the year’s two budget conferences. – There is no reason not to show the cards when they are finished on Friday. Everything will be decided this week, says Nikolai Astrup to news. Henrik Asheim and Nikolai Astrup believe the government must tell what is happening with the temporary tax measures taken last year. Photo: Mats Rønning / news Together with deputy chairman Henrik Asheim, he is now going out and demanding an answer to what should happen to the extraordinary employers’ tax on incomes over NOK 750,000. The additional tax was introduced this year. And it has not yet been given an end date. The government expects to collect around NOK 8 billion from the tax this year. – When the companies have this extra bill for their employees who earn more than NOK 750,000, they should actually be told, as the budget leaks are running rampant at the moment, whether they will pay this next year or not, says Asheim. Believes it is urgent The budget proposal will first be presented to the Storting on 6 October, but will be completed well into the future this week – a few days before the local elections on 11 September. Asheim believes that it is urgent for the companies that must now plan for what costs they will have in the coming year. – What is really urgent to clarify for people – if the government has only started to leak – are these completely hopeless temporary taxes, says Asheim. CHALLENGED: Henrik Asheim received a number of tough questions from the fourth-graders from Svendstuen school in Oslo, who visited the Høyre election booth at Karl Johan yesterday. But it was naturally school meals and mobile phone use rather than temporary employer’s tax that were the topic. Photo: Mats Rønning / news The government has not only introduced a temporary employer contribution. Another crisis tax has also been introduced, namely the so-called high price subsidy for power, which was introduced as a result of extraordinary electricity prices. Finance Minister Trygve Slagsvold Vedum (Sp) has rejected that there will be new, large tax measures next year, even though it was “necessary and right” to introduce a salmon tax and a high price subsidy for power. In a letter to the Storting in March this year, Vedum confirmed “that it is assumed that the high-price subsidy will be discontinued by the end of 2024 at the latest” – Fateful week Nikolai Astrup, who is the Conservative Party’s energy policy spokesperson, believes that we are in a “fateful week for the renewables industry”. – They must show the cards. It is absolutely crucial, especially for the power industry, but also for the skills industry, to know which framework conditions will apply. If we are to reach the climate targets by 2030, we are in a hurry. Then every week really counts, says Astrup and continues: – No one is going to make investment decisions in, for example, wind power, until they know what will happen with the property tax on wind power. Now a lack of power is short-circuiting climate policy, and it is the government’s responsibility to do something about it. In the Storting, the government must negotiate with SV to get a majority for the budget. The Conservative Party also wonders how the government will finance all its initiatives. The government’s budget leaks This time too, there has been no shortage of budget leaks from the sitting government in an ongoing election campaign. Here are some examples from the last few weeks: Construction starts in 2024 for the new Oslofjord tunnel, with a total price of NOK 6.5 billion. Start work on 6 out of 12 tunnels on the new E6 through Sørfold in Nordland, a total of 4 billion is set aside. Collection of campuses at NTNU in Trondheim, 178 million in the 2024 budget, total frame of 6.6 billion. 300 million to 1,500 new nursing home places, through increased investment subsidies. 63 million for emergency storage for food grains Thank you for the last time? When the Conservative Party now asks the government to show its cards and explain how it will finance its investments, there is a clear parallel to the plan that the leadership troika in the Labor Party came up with just before the summer. – Is it a bit like thank you for the last time, this here? – No, that time we also presented several of those coverages. But it is clear that right now that there is an election campaign, people are running around promising money that will come here and there, says Asheim. SHOULD GO AWAY: Minister of Industry Jan Christian Vestre says the temporary employer’s tax must go away. But when that will happen, he is not clear. Photo: Alf Simensen / Alf Simensen Minister of Industry and Labor deputy leader Jan Christian Vestre helped advance the demand for the Conservatives to show their cards in June. – When will there be a clarification on what happens with the extraordinary, temporary tax increase on incomes over 750,000? – The government has been clear since last year that it is a situational measure. When we see that the pressure in the economy is beginning to subside and we have control over inflation, the intention is that this should be gradually phased out. Then, in connection with the presentation of the state budget, the government will come back to how we do it. – So you can’t guarantee that it will happen next year? – I can guarantee that the temporary increase in employer’s contribution will be phased out, says Vestre to news. Four goals for 2024 Finance Minister Trygve Slagsvold Vedum has previously highlighted four main challenges in next year’s budget: Reduce price inflation. Keep people in work. Ensure continued good welfare services. Strengthen Norwegian preparedness. The extremely high price increase moderated somewhat in July, and Vedum believes the peak has been reached. – We believe that for a few more months we will still have fairly high price growth. But that we are at the top and on our way down. It’s very, very good. That is what we use as a basis when we make the budget, he said when he gave the so-called August lecture this week. Labor deputy leader Vestre responds as follows to the question of what is most important right now: – It is that we continue to work to reduce price inflation, secure Norwegian workplaces and, not least, contribute to a fair budget that reduces the differences between people in Norway , do not increase them. – Why was it necessary to increase the tax so sharply and also increase the tax on these high salaries? – In the face of the biggest inflation since the Yapp era, the government took responsibility and took the necessary steps to prevent history from the 80s, with interest rates up to 16-18 per cent, from repeating itself. It also means that we had to look at our splicing team once more and make some situational changes in the tax system, he says. – Has it worked Vestre says the government’s budget measures have worked as intended: – We are now starting to get price inflation under control. There is a high probability that we will also approach the interest rate peak and that interest rates will perhaps go down as early as next year. This is very good news for both people and businesses across Norway, he says. The government can also be pleased that the number of people without a job in this country has not skyrocketed in line with interest rates. Only 2.1 per cent are without a job, according to Nav’s latest figures. In the August lecture, the finance minister assured that “basic welfare services must be prioritised”. At the same time, he announced that the government will have to spend around NOK 40 billion on the consequences of the war in Ukraine in 2024. Forecasts show that 70,000 Ukrainians will come to Norway in 2023 and 2024. – We just have to do that. If the kind of behavior that Putin stands for gets through, it also threatens us as a neighboring country, Vedum said. Police budgets will also be strengthened, and money will be set aside for emergency storage for food grains.
ttn-69
The budget leaks fly between walls – news Norway – Overview of news from different parts of the country
