[ad_1]
Suddenly, the investigative reports no one understands the conclusion of what are really difficult political values issues.
In recent weeks, we have received research that the left has accepted and overinterpreted. The first report shows (supposedly) that the rich have higher incomes than we thought; the second shows (supposedly) that the increase in the wealth tax creates more jobs.
The Deputy Leader of the Labor Party, Hadia Tajik, is one of those who has used the reports for all they are worth: – The Conservatives strip naked with a report they have commissioned themselves. Several times we have asked the government to document that the wealth tax creates more jobs. When they then ask the experts to analyze this, the result was the exact opposite. The wealth tax increase creates more jobs, Hadia Tajik tells FriFagbevegelse.
– Along with Statistics Norway’s report on increasing differences, this will be a hot topic in the election campaign, he adds.
In a comment, Prime Minister Erna Solberg (Conservatives) responds that what the report really shows is that taxpayers adapt to different tax rules.
The fact that the two reports have since received strong professional support does not matter. Nor is it so important that the data in the reports are much more nuanced than the representations when politicians misinterpret and misuse the research to “hit” what are purely political considerations.
The worst example is the Frisch Center report on the estate tax, which is misinterpreted to mean that more jobs are obtained by setting the estate tax. If he had been right, the state could have raised taxes to fix the job. Most people immediately understand that it is free imagination.
What the report shows is that business owners move money where the estate tax is lowest. If assets outside the business receive a higher estate tax, the owners leave their money with the business. Naturally. But it also means that if the wealth tax on what they have in companies is reduced, through lower taxes on so-called working capital, employment will also increase.
Therefore, the results of the report can be used both to defend the increase in wealth tax (on non-business assets) and to reduce the wealth tax on working capital. It is the difference that provides the most employment, according to the report data, and not the total amount of the estate tax.
The latter interpretation is less popular on the left, but what is important is that the research does not yield any conclusions about political balance. It later emerged that one of the main investigators behind the Frisch Center report, Knut Røed, is an economic policy adviser to the Labor Party.
Read more on Dagens Næringsliv:
One of the investigators behind the report that went against government policy is on the Labor Party’s economic council.
At Politisk kvarter in NRK, Røed broke up with Professor Kjetil Storsletten, where the latter ended up promising to eat his hat if this study was published in an internationally recognized research journal. The broadcast hardly made the regular listener any wiser, and the two researchers quarreled for 45 minutes after the broadcast without agreeing.
The second report is an analysis by three researchers from Statistics Norway on the distribution of income in this country. It shows that the income share of the wealthy will be higher if we include the income of the companies they own. Of course.
But the basic question is whether it is correct to attribute the income in companies to shareholders personally. It is a completely new calculation method that is not done in any other country, and it cannot show that the differences increase in Norway over time, nor that we have more or less inequality than other countries (since there are no comparable figures).
The researchers’ conclusion is that inequality is significantly higher than the statistics show. Naturally. If you calculate differently, you will get a different answer. Because you asked another question.
The only problem is that there are two different legal entities. Kjell Inge Røkke is probably the owner of Aker ASA, but that doesn’t mean he can put the proceeds in Aker in his own pocket. And the normal thing is that we look at the income that the owners actually receive in dividends, not the profit that was retained in the company.
The same applies to other property inequalities. If you only take the values that are in the tax statistics, they show a form of inequality. If you include real values, the rich own much more; This has been demonstrated for many decades through the differences between the tax lists and the Capital list of the 400 richest in the country.
But here too the problem is that we cannot easily compare inequality in Norway with inequality in other countries, or say something about how inequality has changed over time in this country. Once again, you have to be skeptical and critical, accepting that research cannot provide answers to political considerations.
Both reports have in common that they consist of a complicated economic analysis of the statistics and that the nuances of the research disappear completely when they are repeated in public. Political interpretation is cooler than formulas, so to speak.
Let’s take Hadia Tajik’s statement point by point:
AFFIRMATION: The increase in the wealth tax creates more jobs.
DONE: Increased difference in wealth tax on assets outside the company and on working capital in the company provides more jobs in the company.
AFFIRMATION: The Statistics Norway report shows larger differences.
DONE: The new calculation method for three researchers from Statistics Norway gives different answers because the question they ask is new and different from the old one.
Last year, the social economist Steinar Juel de Civita did a similar exercise, when he said that we cannot look at economic differences without using what the state owns, that is, the wealth that we all own together. If we divide the community funds among all the inhabitants, the economic differences decrease.
The seas: The distribution of wealth in Norway is unbiased
Both the Statistics Norway researchers and the Civita researcher are right. The inequality depends on the eyes you see and the lenses you see through them.
The left wants a bigger public sector and needs higher taxes to finance it. The right wants to increase the creation of value in society by giving more freedom to private owners and wants to lower taxes.
It is political.
P.S! What do you mean? Is the research always objective or does it incorporate political points of view? Write a reader letter!
[ad_2]
