The Nordic countries do have a lot of taxes, and Norway most of all. And that means Norway is not the easiest country to do business in, unless you're into oil, gas or fish. The one big killer in Norway, is taxation of working capital. Which is why a Norwegian Facebook or Twitter would be impossible at this moment. If you have a company valued at say $100 million, but you're losing money at a rate of $200k per year, you'd think you just need to raise those $200k somehow, which shouldn't be too hard. But guess what, since you're valued at $100 million, you'd have to somehow raise another $2 million each and every year, just to pay your taxes.
I might have been a bit unclear, but the tax I mentioned applies to the owners of the company, not the company itself. Which means that it's very hard for entrepreneurs to maintain control of their company, since they have to sell stock just to pay the taxes on their stock.
A report from The Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise (NHO) published this spring, showed that over 20.000 Norwegian business owners paid more in taxes, based on the company's valuation, than the entire revenue of said company.
