Norway Steps Into the Metaverse With Decentraland Tax Office

The Norwegian government is taking steps to embrace Web3 with the establishment of a metaverse tax office.

At the Nokios conference on Wednesday, the Brønnøysund, Norway’s central register, and Skatteetaten, the nation’s tax authority, announced that they’re partnering with consulting firm Ernst and Young (EY) to establish an office in Decentraland. The goal of the initiative, according to Nokios, is to deliver services to younger, tech-native individuals while establishing their Web3 footprint.

Magnus Jones, Nordic blockchain lead at EY, wrote in a LinkedIn post on Tuesday that he hopes the partnership with Norwegian authorities will help spearhead education in the crypto space by teaching users about taxes related to decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible tokens (NFT).

The Brønnøysund is also exploring additional Web3 services, such as decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO), wallets, smart contracts and more.

“Kudos once again to Norwegian authorities who dare to make moves to bring clarity in a complex landscape,” wrote Jones. “Building further on issuing worlds first guidance on how to tax DeFi and also NFTs, and being a front runner in the crypto space in general.”

Beyond the metaverse, Norway has been slowly integrating crypto services at a national level. In June, the government said it would use Ethereum scaling service Arbitrum to release a capitalization tables platform for unlisted companies. In September, Norway, Israel and Sweden joined forces with the Bank for International Settlements to explore the possibility of introducing a CBDC (central bank digital currency) for cross-border payments.

“We're very intrigued to see what more the world will seek to build atop Ethereum, and we're committed to doing our part to scale Ethereum globally,” said Arbitrum in a Twitter thread.

As the Scandinavian nation delves deeper into the crypto space, other countries are also integrating Web3 tools at a national level. In July, a policy briefing by the Shanghai city government said it plans to bolster its metaverse industry to $52 billion by 2025. And earlier this month, Japan’s prime minister said the country would incorporate the metaverse and NFTs in its plans for digital transformation.