History's Biggest Lie.

For thousands of years, taxation has benefitted emperors, sovereigns, and even the god-kings of Egypt while limiting the people’s upward mobility. Today, the same system by a very unlikely candidate: Norway 🇳🇴.

Read all about it in today’s letter →

📖 ESTIMATED READ TIME: 5 minutes 40 seconds

Greedy gods.

In the fertile lands along the Nile, where the sun god Ra cast his eternal gaze, a civilisation lived whose grandeur was whispered of even in the farthest corners of the world.

This was ancient Egypt, a kingdom where the divine right of Pharaohs was as immutable as the stone their pyramids were fashioned from. Considered gods among men, the Pharaohs ruled with an authority that was both feared and revered, their wealth immeasurable, and their power absolute.

Despite their unimaginable wealth, the Pharaohs guarded their fortunes with an iron grip, shielding the treasures amassed within the temples, even as their people shouldered the weight of the empire’s growing demands.

These temples, like Karnak and Luxor, held priceless artefacts, reserves of grain to withstand droughts, and an armoury of riches so grand it was said that Egypt could run for decades without ever dipping into its people's pockets. However, the Pharaohs saw this wealth as untouchable, divine property too sacred for secular expenses. Instead, they turned to their subjects, demanding taxes in the form of labour, grain, and goods, leaving temple riches pristine and immune from any redistribution.

At the time, grain was the currency of life, the essence of survival. And yet, it was from this grain that the Pharaohs drew their most lucrative tax. Despite owning vast tracts of fertile land, the Pharaohs decreed that every family must contribute a portion of their harvest to the state. This grain tax, known as the shemu, was collected annually, not merely to feed the armies or to store in times of famine, but also to fill the granaries of the royal palace.

This decision to tax the people rather than use temple wealth was not merely practical but ideological. Pharaohs believed their temples’ wealth was the literal power of the gods, safeguarded to ensure the stability of the universe itself. Removing this wealth, they feared, would unsettle the gods and jeopardise the divine order, the ma'at, they so closely guarded. Thus, it was the peasantry, the artisans, and the farmers, who were burdened with taxes to finance the Pharaoh’s ambitious projects: grand temples, colossal statues, and burial tombs for the royal family that pierced the skyline like stone mountains.

This irony was not lost on the common people, who were well aware of the vast temple wealth yet unable to touch even a morsel.

While they starved, the people were bound by duty and law to ensure that the glory of Egypt, and by extension, that of their Pharaoh, was maintained through their labour and taxes.

Fat of the land.

You might not imagine that Egypt’s ancient royal class and the bureaucrats who run modern Norway have much in common. But you’d be wrong.

As someone who has visited Norway multiple times, I can tell you from experience it’s one of the most incredible places on the planet. But the special part of the country I want to focus on is the Government Pension Fund of Norway, otherwise known as its Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF).

Technically made up of two combined funds, the SWF is Norway’s way of keeping the proceeds made from its mineral wealth, primarily oil and gas. Instead of allowing foreign companies in to suck away the fruits of its land, Norway rightly believes the value of what is pulled from its soil should be owned by its people.

It’s a strategy that has definitely worked.

Currently, Norway’s SWF holds USD $1.715 trillion in assets. To put this into perspective, it’s larger than the assets of Apple, Alphabet (Google), Shell, Microsoft, and Chevron combined.

And it’s growing. Quickly.

In the first six months of this year, Norway’s SWF returned a total of 8.6 percent; raking in $138 billion USD. Apple was the second most lucrative company on Earth last year, earning $120 billion, yet the SWF made that and then some in the first six months of this year.

These figures are very important—and they have everything to do with tax.

In its most recent budget, Norway projected to spend the equivalent of $106 billion USD to run the country for an entire year. That’s the entire budget to keep the nation afloat: defence, roads, infrastructure, salaries for government employees, and its world-class socialised healthcare system.

In other words, Norway could have paid for the entire yearly budget of running the nation with what its SWF made in the first six months of this year, while still growing the fund, not to mention what it will make in the second half of 2024.

So why are Norwegians still required to pay taxes?

The SWF is owned by Norway, which means the Norwegian people own it. And if the entire operating requirement of the nation could be covered by the yearly earnings of the SWF while it still grew, there is absolutely no reason Norwegians should still be paying taxes.

But they do.

Not only do they still pay, but they pay some of the highest taxes in the world: Norwegians pay the third highest VAT and are in the top 20 nations for personal tax (at 25 and 46.4 percent, respectively).

Norway’s SWF could still grow, while covering every single expense the country needs to run, and Norwegians wouldn’t have to pay these taxes again.

Again, why are Norwegians still required to pay taxes?

According to the government, the answer is simple. Here’s how that question and the answer to it appear on the Norwegian Tax Administration website:

“Why do we pay tax? Living in Norway, we enjoy and benefit from our society's many welfare initiatives. They cost a lot. That’s why it’s important that everyone pays their share. We want everyone to go to school, and to have the right to treatment in a hospital in case of illness. We achieve this by paying tax.”

Once again, the SWF could pay for all these initiatives without taxing a single Norwegian krone from a citizen's pocket.

Norway isn’t the sole example of a situation like this existing.

According to all available data, my birth country of Australia is the richest piece of rock on the planet. This is backed by the fact that each year, Australia exports the most mineral wealth of any other nation.

If Australia adopted the Norwegian model—that the nation’s oil, gas, and mineral riches were owned by the people, instead of for-profit multinational companies—it would become the richest nation on Earth almost overnight.

There would be no need to tax the Australian people because the nation would have all it needed to run the country and more.

Australia could adopt this model and not need to tax its people. But it doesn’t.

Norway already has this model and doesn’t need to tax its people. But it still does.

Why?

Because taxation isn’t about doing the right thing for our nations and their people.

Our system isn’t designed with the people's best interests in mind. Like the Pharaohs of ancient Egypt, our modern overlords believe themselves to be untouchable gods who can keep the wealth for themselves.

History’s biggest lie is that we need taxation to fund the running of our nations. Instead, taxation is about politicians and the world’s elite hoarding the fat of the land, while stripping the value of our labour from our pockets through taxation.

This is why you shouldn’t feel ashamed or guilty about paying minimal or zero taxes.

This is why I also believe it’s our civil duty to pay as little as we possibly can.

Written by Leon Hill.
Founder, Anticitizen.

This newsletter is for educational purposes, and is not financial advice. Please do your own research, and consider risks involved with investing or purchasing any asset.