Taxation of work offshore
Supreme Court judgment 8 June 2021, HR-2021-1243-A, (case no. 21-013294SIV-HRET), civil case, appeal against judgment.
Moises Corrales Entenza, Jose Ramon Rodriguez Pineiro, Feliciano Fernandez Lago, Juan Manuel Alsina Dominguez, Farid Ati Allah, Francisco Jose Caamaño Leon, Poseidon Personnel Services S.A. (intervener) (Counsel Anette Fjeld) v. The State represented by the Tax Office (The Office of the Attorney General represented by Andreas Hjetland)
Justices: Matningsdal, Matheson, Bull, Falch, Thyness
Six sea workers resident abroad had worked onboard a foreign ship that had transported a deck from an oil platform on the continental shelf to a shipyard in Norway. According to the so-called shelf provision in the Tax Conventions with the relevant foreign States, tax is payable to Norway for work performed "offshore" for 30 days or more during a 12-month period. The Supreme Court found, like the previous instances, that the demarcation between land and sea also defined what was "offshore" within the meaning of the shelf provision, which made it irrelevant whether the activities had been carried on outside or within the baseline. The Supreme Court also found, unlike the previous instances, that only days on which the employee actually worked should be counted, not earned days off, when deciding whether the requirement of 30-days of work performed – the time requirement – was met. The tax assessment was set aside for three of the claimants that did not meet the time requirement. Apart from that, the appeal against the Court of Appeal's judgment was dismissed.