[stonescar]

I can't really say I have deeper knowledge of the entire system, but generally there are a lot of taxes and fees in Norway. On general income there is standard 28% tax, and if you make more than ca. $75k a year there is an additional tax (@75k added 9%, @110k added 12%) plus a welfare fee of about 8-10%. You also pay tax according to your assets - kind of complicated, but the normal range is from 0-1%. We also have taxes on merchandise, of 25% - except groceries at 15% and transportation/tickets (bus fare/cinema etc) at 8%. There is also a 28% tax on stock profits (don't know the jargon), which is calculated after the companies profit tax (28%). On heritage, you pay nothing for the first $50k, 8% on the surplus up to $130k (10% if not child/parent), and 20% above that (30% if not child/parent). There are also a lot of deductions etc making this very hard to sum up. As a student, I can earn up to $8k a year tax free, and all tax payers can deduct $6k from their income before calculating the income tax. For a company it gets so incredibly complicated, but you can deduct for everything. In general the idea is that the more you earn, the more you should pay in taxes - ie. Robin hood style, but still the filthy rich manage to write it off on their companies or pay taxes to Andorra (tax free) or some [censored].

Still, poker is in a legal gray area here, so there aren't any set rules for tax of poker winnings. This comes from the fact that Poker is not recognized as a "skill game" but as a "luck game", and is therefore taxed as lottery winnings. Some law professors claim that Poker is illegal in Norway, and some claim that Poker is illegal if it is your main source of income - it's a mess really. Live poker is prohibited by law, so there aren't any casinos, and you could be punished for having a home game. The only guide lines for taxing poker winnings claims that you should pay tax if

a) single win over $2k
b) it is your main source of income (income tax)

The problem with this is that playing poker for a living might be illegal, and the single win rule majorly favours cash games over tournaments (since 1 pot = 1 win), and multitabling low stakes would be more profitable than single tabling mid stakes. This results in a lot of poker players not paying tax at all, even though many of them would like to. There are also no deduction for losses, so in theory, you could lose money and have to pay taxes, as your winnings are taxed and not your profits - so [censored] up.

Anyways back to the issue at hand. I think the main difference lies in the merchandise tax and numerous other fees on just about everything. A beer in a grocery store costs more than $4, gas is over $2 per liter, cars are incredibly expensive ($40k+ for a decent new car, $80k+ for a nice car with big engine, $120k+ for a baller ride). Of course, the jobs pay more as well, since everything is that much more expensive - a teacher gets something like $60k a year, a lawyer starts at about $120k a year. Very rough estimates, though. On top of all this we have the oil = $$$

Sorry for the long and incomprehensible post...

PS
Online poker may be banned within a few years, resulting in making bank transfers illegal. Problem is there aren't any poker sites in norway (illegal), so we are really dependant upon Neteller/Moneybookers etc not banning us, in a scenario like that. Lot of hypocrisy, though, as there is a monopoly on sports betting/lotteries etc. called "Norsk Tipping". I think they didn't dare to challenge the laws against poker, by proposing to host a Norwegian online poker client, but instead they have fronted an Anti-poker campaign because the greedy bastards fear we will spend our money elsewhere.