New project on Elderly People`s Income in Coastal Towns in Aust-Agder

Thore Karlsen and Dag Ellingsen of Agder Research will examine the development of the relationship between elderly people's income and municipal taxes in coastal municipalities in Aust-Agder based on SSB's data register and municipal documents. 

Agder Research will document development in elderly people's income and wealth from 2000 until today and the development of municipal taxes and fees within the same time frame. 

The Council for the Elderly wants to prioritise coastal municipalities with real estate tax. The reasons for this are that four out of five coastal municipalities in the county have introduced real estate tax, that real estate tax on the coast has become high, and that real estate tax is therefore expected to have great impact in terms of elderly people's cost of living. In addition, the Council for the Elderly wants to compare cost development in municipalities with real estate tax with the cost level in one municipality without this tax. The municipalities that are being included in the project are therefore Risør, Arendal, Lillesand and Tvedestrand which does not have real estate tax.

Background
While old age pensioners' income development is decided by national law and is regulated annually according to inflation, municipalities set their taxes and fees according to their own budgetary needs. This has lead to great differences in the level of fees among the municipalities. Both the Consumer Council and SSB have documented this relationship in various surveys.