The voice of the debate expresses the views of the writer.
In a reader post sent across the country, FRP and Roy Steffensen rallied with our tax cuts. Try to ridicule him with characterizations and accusations of bluffing and dishonesty and jokes that I need a new calculator.
Read the debate post here: Vedum’s calculator calculates error after error
Let me briefly explain what we did.
It has to contribute more
On the Hurdal platform, the Center Party and the Labor Party write that we will cut taxes. The reason is that taxes hit those with little income particularly hard. Taxes don’t take into account your income, like income tax.
Therefore, we believe it is best to use the tax system to even out. With our budget, those who have made a lot of good money from our common natural resources have to contribute a little more, while we can reduce the tax for those with ordinary incomes.
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At the same time, we have chosen to reduce some fees. I give some examples.
From 1 January next year, we will reduce fuel taxes by a total of NOK 2.2 billion. When it comes to normal car traffic, the taxes are reduced in total by around NOK 600 million, also taking into account the increase in the CO₂ tax.
This, together with the increase in turnover claims, will have a fairly neutral effect on the price at the pump, but if we hadn’t taken these measures it would have been possible to raise prices. We don’t want it.
We are also doing something completely new: abolishing, among other things, a fuel tax, namely the basic mineral oil tax, a tax on industrial diesel. In total, this is a reduction of NOK 1.56 billion on non-road machinery when the CO₂ tax increase is also taken into account.
This means that all construction companies and others who depend on this type of fuel get a reduced pump price of around 50 øre. We do this because we know that some companies have struggled with high prices and such a measure can make everyday life a little easier for those building Norway.
At the same time, we reduce the electricity tax. This is a tax you pay on your electricity and a tax we have already reduced in the past on a general basis. In the winter months of January and until March 2023, the electricity tax is further reduced from 15.41 øre per kilowatt to 9.16 øre per kilowatt.
This was a move we made last year as well.
Tell it like it is
FRP is happy to ridicule that. But it’s a fact. I suspect this perhaps frustrates the FRP a little as it shows that the Center Party, along with Labor and SV, have managed to reduce this type of tax more than they have achieved themselves in government along with the Conservative Party, KrF and the Liberal Party.
The truth is that the FRP’s preferred partner, the Conservative Party, has actually proposed a fuel tax increase for next year.
If the Conservatives had their way, and if we took their alternative budget as a basis, fuel taxes would rise by NOK 3.8 billion. This is because the fees increase compared to our proposal for both petrol, diesel and industrial diesel.
On, for example, ordinary industrial diesel, the pump price under Høyre’s proposal would rise by more than two crowns including VAT. Now they’re certainly making some minor changes to the revenue requirements, without it affecting that to a large extent.
I never said there is a quick and easy solution to the challenges people are facing now.
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On the contrary, the times we are in now require safe management, reduced use of oil and all measures that can be taken to curb rising prices for people.
But with a limited budget, we found room to reduce several fees. It doesn’t mean that all problems go away, but it is a step towards a fairer tax system.
So FRP could have been a little more honest and told it like it is. Had he been allowed to govern alongside the Conservative Party, taxes would have risen instead.
Regardless of whether we’d used my calculator or Roy Steffensen’s.
