There are no state taxes in Norway because there are no states – it isn’t a federal system. Some of the money raised through income taxes will go to county/local municipalities but that is all done “behind the scenes”

I can’t help with personal tax matters, I’m a writer, not an accountant. Check your tax assessment – all the detail is on there.

Hi, yes there are some differences, most notably self-employed people pay a higher social security. That’s because in ‘regular’ employment, the employee only pays part of the social security, the rest is covered by the employer. I’m working on a new article about tax for self-employed people at the moment.

In reality taxes are lower than stated in the documents. But this is due to deductions that are on personal level depending on you family finance, loans, capital, etc.
Practically on my pay slip is always written 44% but I never paid more than 37%.

Hi. You can check the tax level for the 2 tax cards and see which one would be in your advantage. Then check if possible the situations of your colleagues. Married/ wife got a job or not/children/ loans/ debts/ capital, etc. Unfortunattely I don’t know where you could find the way Skat will asign a certain tax card to you but maybe some of the readers here, have more info.