Norway is pondering changes to its tax code to recoup revenue from its fleeing rich — including some big-name shipowners.
The change, proposed by the Labour Party-led government, would levy an exit tax on capital gains on assets acquired while the individual was living in Norway, ending a system in which the taxes did not have to be paid until the gains were realised.
The new tax would have to be paid within 12 years, would be at the dividend tax rate of 37.8% and would be subject to all relocations and transfers from 20 March.
“The government wants to ensure that values that are accumulated while living in Norway are actually taxed here and that the tax is paid,” finance minister Trygve Slagsvold Vedum said, according to Bloomberg. “It’s fair and important for both trust in the tax system and the community.”
Vedum is a member of the Center Party, which controls parliament in a minority-led coalition with Labour.
TradeWinds’ sibling newspaper Dagens Naeringsliv pointed to billionaire Kjell Inge Rokke as having started the exodus of wealthy Norwegians to Switzerland since he departed in 2022.
Rokke recently hatched a NOK 13.2bn ($1.2bn) refinancing deal with Solstad Offshore, in which he took a controlling stake in Norway’s second-largest offshore vessel owner. He also reportedly secured two VLCC newbuilding slots at South Korea’s Hanwha Ocean for delivery in the second half of 2026.
Few other shipping figures appear on the newspaper’s list of “Swiss refugees” published in December following Norway’s annual tax disclosures, save former John Fredriksen lieutenant Fredrik Halvorsen, who joined Tor Olav Troim after he stepped out on his own.
Fredriksen himself relocated to Cyprus and renounced his Norwegian citizenship over the country’s taxes in 2006.
He could, however, be caught up in changes to British non-domiciled tax rules as he lives in the UK alongside other high-profile Norwegian shipping players such as Niels Stolt-Nielsen and Morten Hoegh.
It is unclear, though, how they organise their finances.
Last year, Atle Bergshaven said he would be spending more time in Cyprus rather than his hometown of Grimstad, while backing off shipping.
After selling his B-Gas LNG carrier company, his Bergshav Management fully controls just one ship, according to its website: the 13,200-dwt product tanker Caribe Liza (built 2006).
