We present XMM-Newton spectral analysis of all 38 Seyfert galaxies from the Palomar spectroscopic sample of galaxies .
These are found at distances of up to 67 Mpc and cover the absorbed 2-10 keV luminosity range \sim 10 ^ { 38 } -10 ^ { 43 } erg~ { } s ^ { -1 } .
Our aim is to determine the distribution of the X-ray absorption in the local Universe .
Three of these are Compton-thick with column densities just above 10 ^ { 24 } cm ^ { -2 } and high equivalent width FeK _ { \alpha } lines ( > 700 eV ) .
Five more sources have low values of the X-ray to [ OIII ] flux ratio suggesting that they could be associated with obscured nuclei .
Their individual spectra show neither high absorbing columns nor flat spectral indices .
However , their stacked spectrum reveals an absorbing column density of N _ { H } \sim 10 ^ { 23 } cm ^ { -2 } .
Therefore the fraction of absorbed sources ( > 10 ^ { 22 } cm ^ { -2 } ) could be as high as 55 \pm 12 % .
A number of Seyfert-2 appear to host unabsorbed nuclei .
These are associated with low-luminosity sources L _ { X } < 3 \times 10 ^ { 41 } erg~ { } s ^ { -1 } .
Their stacked spectrum again shows no absorption while inspection of the Chandra images , where available , shows that contamination from nearby sources does not affect the XMM-Newton spectra in most cases .
Nevertheless , such low luminosity sources are not contributing significantly to the X-ray background flux .
When we consider only the brighter , > 10 ^ { 41 } erg~ { } s ^ { -1 } , 21 sources , we find that the fraction of absorbed nuclei rises to 75 \pm 19 % while that of Compton-thick sources to 15-20 % .
The fraction of Compton-thick AGN is lower than that predicted by the X-ray background synthesis model in the same luminosity and redshift range .