By Mary K. Evjen Olsen
From the moment they are born, all Norwegians are instant members of the National Social Insurance and natural beneficiaries of free health care that renders free hospitalization and immunization.
Guaranteed by the complete welfare system made to offer equal benefits to all the inhabitants of the nation, a Norwegian working mother with a newborn child can take maternity leave for 42 weeks with 100 percent wage compensation. A Norwegian father, too, can take a four-week fully paid paternity leave.
One could be an unemployed 21-year old and single parent, a 46-year old single mother and Cabinet minister or even an average 35-year old married parent working fulltime. Regardless of one's social, marital and economic standing, all are equally eligible to receive an allowance for each child and educate their children free of charge all the way to university.
In addition, every single Norwegian citizen is guaranteed a retirement pension from the age of 67! Does the phrase ``from the cradle to the grave'' ring a bell here? You bet.
To the vast majority of Koreans ― the poor and wealthy alike, who seem to lead a daily life of cutthroat competition and stress to secure sufficient funds for their children's higher education and comfortable life after retirement, a country like Norway is surely a paradise, a near-utopian state. Naturally, and understandably, the sentiment of envy among the Korean public at large for the Norwegian welfare system is often enormous.
Having said that, however, it seems rather apt for the envious Korean public to turn to their government with a stern rebuke, criticizing their government for having failed, or failing, to build a near-utopian state similar to that of Norway.
They often chastise the government as if it were disregarding the needy and weak in the society intentionally while sitting on a fat government budget disposable for various types of social welfare services. They often voice how the government should allocate a greater budget to solve all the financial challenges the nation's under privileged class are facing in the areas of health and education, just as ``competent'' governments like Norway do for their citizens! To many, the government's sheer incompetence is to blame for the absence of a perfect welfare system in Korea.
Here, a few interesting questions arise; exactly how could the Korean government realize a near-utopian state like Norway? Is the discontented Korean public aware of the true force behind the Norwegian welfare system, like its sincere taxpayers, for instance?
To begin with, Norway is, unlike Korea, a country richly endowed with valuable natural resources like petroleum, gas, hydropower, fish, forests and minerals. The third biggest crude oil exporter in the world after Saudi Arabia and Russia, Norway generates nearly 50 percent of its annual export earnings of US$136.1 billion solely from oil off its 2,650 km-long coastline. With a record high government budget surplus in hand, the country boasts its government petroleum fund of US$250 billion as of today.
The Korean public needs to understand, however, that the handsome export earnings from oil production are not financing today's near-perfect Norwegian welfare system, for the Norwegian government is securely tucking away 100 percent of its Petroleum Fund as pension funds necessary for many future generations to come.
Instead, the welfare system in Norway today is being financed purely through the government's high and steady tax revenue. In other words, Norway's ideal welfare system owes its gigantic funds to the ethical working Norwegians who gladly pay 35 to 50 percent of their incomes in taxes and take great pride in their roles as honourable taxpayers.
How many of the 24 million labour forces in Korea today would gladly pay 35 to 50 percent income tax so that the government could enact and implement the kind of welfare system that they fantasize about?
According to a report released by the Korean National Tax Administration recently, nearly 70 percent of the Korean professionals and self-employing business owners with high incomes have been filing false income reports during the last 10 years. Their average tax omission or evasion rate was a whopping 57 percent, which reflects that most of the high-income earning Korean population probed recently have been reporting less than half of their actual income.
Unlike Norway, Korea is an ideologically divided country burdened with a hefty defence budget. Unlike Norway, Korea is a small country practically with zero natural resources. The only true valuable resources are probably her people. Yet, 70 percent of those most economically blessed citizens have been conveniently omitting or failing to report their incomes with honesty to evade taxes for a decade or longer, the way the Norwegian critical mass has never attempted to do.
Korea seems, therefore, to be lacking obviously some essential elements to support the Norwegian style welfare system that her people blindly fancy: natural resources and sincere taxpayers.
Before they continue to criticise their government for its lack of competence or willingness to offer them a near-utopian welfare system, the Korean public might have to remember this; the true forces behind Norway's sustainable utopian system are simply transparent business practices and sincere taxpayers with ethical principles in everyday life.
A 70 percent tax evasion rate is a figure that is impossible to create a decent welfare state on. Also, it is simply a disgraceful figure for the world's 13th largest developed economy.
The writer is a marketing specialist with background in journalism. She can be reached at marykeo@hotmail.com