1. Still trying to get "pension points" awarded for 433,000,00,- worth of taxes deducted at source from my gross salary between 1989 and 1996. That was a "special tax scheme" for non-resident foreigners.
2. I bought a house in Norway, registered a business, got a residence permit, signed onto the Folkregister. 18 months later, after becoming a Dad to a Norwegian son, born to a norwegian Mum, in Norway, the residence permit (which needed renewing) was refused so I had to come off the Folkregister. That denies you access to any benefits in Norway in return for your National Insurance contributions.
3. Being off the Folkregister, I go back to the "special tax for foreigners" and a few years later, when I don't get paid, I find out the company who have been deducting the taxes haven't been passing them on to the tax collector. I'm fined for non-payment of taxes with interest added as, after the initial "special foreigners' tax" deductions at source, the house I own in Norway (a country I am abliged to leave every 3 months as I have no residence permit) has made me tax liable to Norway, a country UDI have refused me permission to live in.
being a parent of a Norwegian child, even one of whom you have shared custody doesn't entitle you to a residence permit.
Owning a house in Norway goes a long way to making you tax liable to Norway and national Insurance contributions are automatically added to your tax assessment. However, you get nothing in return because you're not entitled to benefits if you're not on the Folkregister which needs you to have a residence permit which I was refused because I "didn't need one" because my work took me out of Norway and I wasn't there more than 3 months at a time.
I managed this situation for a while until inevitably, I became ill. With no entitlement to any benefits, a GP (doctor) to co-ordinate the follow up to an operation where my gallbladder was mistaken for a pseudocyst on my pancreas, I had to return to the UK and stop working to receive the "follow up". I got a bill for 60,000,00,- for a week in a Norwegian hospital despite being a fully paid up member of the Norwegian National Insurance Scheme and then failed the Habitual Residency Test in the UK.
As late as 2014, I was told I am not entitled to an EU Healthcard or a GP in Norway. The beaurocracy here is horrendous.
If you are a middle class, qualified professional comfortably in the system in your native land, you're almost certainly better off where you are than coming to Norway.
Coming here you risk your qualifications being useless if your Norwegian isn't deemed up to scratch and, without work, you'll soon find yourself in trouble or doing menial jobs (like the cliche Afghan brain surgeon washing dishes in restaurants)
Buy a house here and you risk becoming tax a liable to a country that refuses you permission to live there plus, of course, there's the risk your tax deductions will go missing if you "don't exist". You'll return "home" and discover your previously good credit rating is non-existent, you're being chased by the Norwegian tax authorities for taxes that were taken from your wages but kept by your Norwegian employers.
If you're fleeing war, famine, disease and poverty ... Norway will perhaps be a step up for you. You may not be happy here but you MAY be better off if you can keep yourself warm.
It's a beautiful country with some fine people but, perhaps this is because Norway never had an "empire", it's not geared up for administering waves of migration and I wouldn't say "case-handling" is a Norwegian strong point. You can expect to wait the best part of a year to get any reply to letters to state bodies. often, you won't get a reply at all especially if the person handling it isn't sure how to proceed. The easy cases involving Norwegians may well be dealt with first.
Do take a cruise round the fjords sometime and go as far North as possible. I enjoyed Honningsvag!
To keep up to date, google "EFTA""Surveillance""Norway" and you'll see the kind of cases being brought against The Kingdom of Norway, the kind of cases that ended up being taken to the EFTA equivalent of the EU court rather than, for example, Norway deciding it should pay benefits to foreigners who'd worked and paid National Insurance in Norway.
It's also worth pointing out that learning Norwegian may not be the best investment you could make with your time and energy. You can't use it anywhere else unlike Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Russian etc.. in places like Brazil, South America ... places where there's potential for growth.
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