15 ms·
In Norway, everyone can know how much you earn [video]
- deanclatworthy 10y agoIt's the same in Finland. Tax rates are fairly easy to discover for anyone. And based off that you can get a very good idea of their earnings. In practice I've never met or spoken to anyone who has gone out their way to do this. It's normally just the tabloids outing the salaries of politicians and celebrities once a year.
- whack 10y agoIf I had access to such information, I would immediately try to figure out how much my colleagues and peers in other groups/companies are making. Knowing how much other people are making for similar job functions, gives you huge negotiating power in managing your career. It's a net win for all workers in society.
- varjag 10y agoYou can't look up other peoples' tax anonymously in Norway though since 2013. Your person of interest gets an automatic notification.
- Tharkun 10y agoHave you considered the alternative approach of talking to people? A lot less creepy than cyber stalking their tax reports.
- HarryHirsch 10y agoI did, here at Tumbleweed State College. The request was met with puzzlement, even indignation. The explanation that secrecy about salaries benefits only management caused even greater outrage, as did pointing out that Tumbleweed State is in an open records state, where salaries of state employees are available online or can be obtained through a FOIA request. At times, people are plain dumb.
- PunchTornado 10y agonot reliable. a lot of my friends were saying they were earning much more than were really making. made me depressed for quit a while. then I got a wonderful job as a data admin for an intelligence institution and for a few days when certain maintenance was due I had unlimited access to everyone's earning in my country. THE LIES! I always have issues negotiating my wage so knowing what other people are earning would imprive my bargaining power.
- lord_harrington 10y agodid you try using your newfound powers for science as well? wage gap numbers are presumably drawn from smaller numbers in countries without public tax returns, actually computing this nationwide would be amazing
- PunchTornado 10y agoI could just execute individual queries and fake them as tests unfortunately. I did it only for friends and public figures. But I think what you are saying is done by other institutions in most countries. I regularly see our national statistics institute releasing studies about gender pay gap etc.
- ajmurmann 10y agoWow, THAT is creepy! Did you get fired?
- PunchTornado 10y ago
- digi_owl 10y agoKeep in mind that at least in Norway it is common that unions do collective bargaining. Never mind that there is no legally mandated minimum salary. All in all it is a two way street. We are in this together, so we all pull together etc.
- nawitus 10y agoOne recruiter said that he'll find out my salary from my tax return when I said I didn't want to disclose it to him. By the way, I think the actual income is public knowledge, not the tax rate.
- deanclatworthy 10y agoPretty bad recruiter by the sounds of it. I've never been asked my current salary. Only expected salary. I expect he/she was calling got bluff.
- bitJericho 10y agoIt's actually one if those signals that the company is no good.
- stevekemp 10y agoI'm a recent newcomer to Finland, and I've never been tempted. But I've loved looking things up in the naming-registry; seeing how many people in the country share my forename/surname has been fascinating.
- fert46 10y agoFarmer's subsidies are also public knowledge in the EU and are routinely printed in papers. That lets you know appropriately their gross income. I can't see that happening for other sectors of society who benefit from government support.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- Kiro 10y agoI must be naive but I thought this was public information in most countries.
- manarth 10y agoWould you mind saying which country you live in? I'm from the UK, where income/tax is private, and my understanding is that this is the same in the USA, and most European countries. It's interesting that what's "normal" to me is so alien and unexpected to other people.
- hkjgkjy 10y agoI think it's common in Scandinavia, and when moving out of the peninsula for the first time I was chocked that it wasn't like that for everyone. Now I feel queasy about having that data public.
- ACS_Solver 10y agoI have the opposite experience, I moved to Scandinavia (Sweden), and this is still one of the weirder things to me. I like the ideas of transparency in general that are prevalent, but I don't see how publishing the tax returns of individual citizens working in the private sector contributes to transparency.
- Kiro 10y agoThe transparency goes a long way in Sweden. You can call the tax office and say "I want this person and all his relatives' social security numbers, income statements, address history etc etc". They can't question it and you don't need any reason.
- mchaver 10y agoGenuinely curious, have there ever been issues of people abusing this? It could possibly be an issue if someone wants to use that information to harass/follow/stalk someone.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- klausjensen 10y agoWhen I lived in Norway, I found this to be a pointless violation of my privacy. Still do.
- Svenskunganka 10y agoWell, it's a different culture here in Scandinavia. Personally, I couldn't care less if anyone wanted to look up my salary - whether it is a recruiter or someone else. I have my own valuation of my time and skills and if a potential employer can't meet that, there's someone else who will. Having this mindset will help sift out companies that you probably wouldn't want to work for in the first place.
- walshemj 10y agoBut it reduces your ability to negotiate its also acts to keep the lower orders in their place as an atypical candidate my have started out at a lower salary and so be les likely to progress to the same level as some one born with a silver spoon in their mouth
- Svenskunganka 10y agoIt's easy to say that without looking at the countries we're talking about here. The nordic countries are the closest places on earth to "everyone born equally". We all have access to the same education and healthcare, whether our parents have money or not (since it is fully government-funded through taxes).
- kalleboo 10y agoNot to mention the strength of unions and collective bargaining (maybe not in tech in particular though)
- Broken_Hippo 10y agoIn a way, that goes both ways. In Norway, management is as likely to have a union as the employee. The factory my spouse works at, negotiations are usually done between the unions. A little over half the employees have a union, and from what I understand folks can choose their union. You might have a different work contract than the person standing next to you because of different unions or one having a lack of a union.
- widforss 10y agoWhat? You cannot do this in every democratic country? The government should be transparent, therefore everything the government bodies do that does not obviously need to be protected should be public.
- johannes1234321 10y agoFor the government being transparent you have to know what the government collects. But for that it doesn't matter what a single person earns and pays. This might be more relevant with corporate taxes (where authorities make deals to keep a company in one location), subsidiaries or donations to political parties (which aim for influence)
- widforss 10y agoTouché. However, I will continue to think that it is completely normal, as will most scandinavians ;)
- TheOtherHobbes 10y agoI think all public, private and corporate financial transactions, including cash transactions, should be public, with absolutely no expectation of privacy or avoidance through clever financial engineering or creative accounting. Every single transaction. Ever. In the whole world. Recorded permanently. It would be the fastest way to end political corruption. It would also shine some light on who the world's richest people really are, and how they make and spend their money.
- johannes1234321 10y agoThis would also be the fastest way to end all privacy. What I read, what I eat and with who and also which medicine I take. Transparency for political decisions is important as is privacy.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- 10y ago
- maffeis 10y agoItaly did the same in 2008, publishing a list with 2005 tax returns info, causing public uproars. The list was then removed (and never been published again) after the Italian Data Protection Authority ruled it infringed citizens' privacy. Needless to say, the data is still available through P2P networks: https://torrentproject.se/?t=redditi+2005 https://torrentproject.se/?t=redditi+2005
- hkjgkjy 10y agoIt works like that here in Sweden as well. Fun story: in my teenage years, when dating my high school sweetheart, I went to visit her grandparents house for the first time. Arriving at their house, the grandmother quickly pulls out her Taxeringskalender (taxation calendar - a paperback where a company has collected all this public information, and they sell it as a handy book). She begins to look up my surname and tells me how much my parents earn. After having lived abroad (Japan, Germany and the UK) I've realized the Scandinavian system is weird at times, but they (or we) do their thing and everyone is kind of aiming at the same goal in society. Extreme transparency, and many striving for equality above all.
- widforss 10y agoThat's just weird. Social rule number one: don't look up somebody in the Taxeringskalender when they are in the same room.
- Numberwang 10y agoGrandmothers don't need to follow social rules though. Special exemption rule.
- johannes1234321 10y agoFor me this is only fair - why do it in their back if you do it anyways. The more relevant question is: why at all? The granddaughter could choose herself ...
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- charlesdm 10y agoThis doesn't sound like a fun story at all, actually. I honestly don't see what kind of good could come from disclosing tax returns publicly..
- Hermel 10y agoSocial control. When everyone is watching, not properly declaring your income is much more risky.
- fowlerpower 10y agoThis is even more interesting when companies do it. There are many startups these days that are pushing radical transparency and you actually know what everyone makes in the company. I think this builds trust and frees people up from the anxiety of not knowing if they are getting screwed. The other thing is all high performing individuals in society, athletes, actors what have you, their salaries are know. This isn't as radical as you might think and I think it has benefits for society.
- walshemj 10y agoSuch as ?
- henrijuntunen 10y agoBuffer: https://open.buffer.com/introducing-open-salaries-at-buffer-including-our-transparent-formula-and-all-individual-salaries/ https://open.buffer.com/introducing-open-salaries-at-buffer-...
- aukaost 10y agoSame thing in Iceland. There's a magazine published every year with salaries of notable persons divided by sector.
- jkot 10y agoNorway has zero transparency when it comes to children rights. Some governments (Slovak, Czech, Romania) recommend not to travel there with children. EDIT: Some explanations. - In Norway social services (Barnevernet) can take children from family without any explanation. - Parents are under gag order, and can not talk about their case. Talking to press means you loose parental rights. - There is no appeal, proof, or any oversight. - Barnevernet does not release ANY details about cases. It is to protect children. - No details are released even if child is already dead (suicide) and does not need protection. - Bernevernet has zero oversight, it does not even allow foreign social workers to look into their materials. - People who work for Bernevernet can also work for private companies which provide child care (unique in Europe). So person who decides on child removal may have direct financial benefit from doing so. - Siblings are often split and placed far apart (8 hours drive). - Removed children must speak Norwegian, mother tongue is suppressed (siblings are split). Foster parents often do not have common language with children. - Relatives of children (grandparents, aunties, divorced parents) have zero chance to get custody. - Anonymous surveys (parents are under gag order) indicate there are thousands of such cases (Norway is very small country). Mostly immigrants.
- ced 10y agoWhat do you mean? What can happen?
- EliRivers 10y agoNorway is big on protecting children. In particular, some things that seem normal in some cultures - open-handed slaps, whipping them with a belt or other such weapon - are illegal. There have been some cases recently where children have been removed from their families, and because Norway is so big on protecting children, they don't release to the press the details of the cases. I suspect that some of the outcry might be because of these two facts; because "of course" it's ridiculous to take children from their families because of a little physical punishment, and combined with the information vacuum, rumours and supposition take the place of fact. There will also be a strong correlation between immigrant families (from physical punishment cultures) and the application of physical punishment, which will make the stats look odd at first glance.
- subzeross 10y agoNorway is no different from all rich oil-producing countries. Just selling oil is not that hard, but what will happen when Norway run out of oil?
- tokai 10y agoThey will live off their fund. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Norway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Nor...
- EliRivers 10y agoI expect owning 1% of all the stocks and bonds in the world will see them do just fine.
- billhathaway 10y agoNorway is handling their oil wealth pretty responsibly and have a huge (U.S. $873 billion) government fund based on petroleum profits[0]. This American Life ran a podcast segment on it back in 2011 which was interesting[1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Norway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Nor... [1] http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2011/08/26/139972557/the-friday-podcast-norways-got-advice-for-libya http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2011/08/26/139972557/the-f...
- Broken_Hippo 10y agoI'm an immigrant in Norway. There are a lot of notable exceptions between oil-producing nations. They found oil later than a lot of other nations (late 60's), and took steps upfront to not get in the same situation. In the country itself, electric cars are subsidized (and have benefits). Gas is taxed pretty well. Having a vehicle is expensive. Clean energy is encouraged. They took the money they've made with oil and invested it in a lot of different industries and they use the interest and profits from that to fun public programs, though lots of stuff is taxed and that tax is used as well. The fund itself is pretty diverse, and the folks have a philosopher or two on board. The whole point is that from what I see, no one sees it as something that will last forever. The country is already planning on such things. What exactly the plan is, I haven't a clue, but I sleep better at night knowing that folks smarter (or with more influence) than I are thinking in such ways. From what I can tell, it is a mix of proactive and prudent.
- protomyth 10y agoI'm sure that would be just peachy when the company you work for runs all its employees and notices that you reported more income than they are paying you. It was bad enough when I worked under a government grant so my salary was public. I prefer privacy.
- ginko 10y agoWhen would that be the case? When you have another job on the side? How is that your employer's business?
- lettergram 10y agoPersonally, (I'm less than 25) I make about 75% of my income from the company I work at, the other 25% doing odd jobs, websites, etc. That latter percentage is probably increasing every month too. I can't imagine the company I work at being super excited I'm (for example) doing code reviews; or running a website. Technically, I don't have a clause in my contract forbidding me from doing external work, so long as I give the company 40 hours a week. I know I am not alone. I know one co-worker makes about a half a million a year in an external business selling car parts. He just works at the company for fun essentially, since he is allowed to play with the entire companies system architecture.
- danso 10y agoWhy do you feel justified in assuming what your company would think? And how do you justify working at such a place with the kind of corporate moral code that would punish employees for behavior not defined in the employment contract? There are plenty of scenarios in which an employer believes that they deserve to know how their employee conducts themselves outside of work, including other jobs, and in those scenarios, this should be specified in the contract. In the news business, working for someone who might intersect with your beat, e.g. making phone calls for the local chapter of Democrats if you're covering politics, will often result in a severe reprimand if not firing. If you want to be a schoolteacher, you can be fired for having worked in porn, even if those days are over. [0] [0] http://www.cbsnews.com/news/stacie-halas-fired-calif-teacher-with-porn-past-loses-appeal/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/stacie-halas-fired-calif-teacher...
- newintellectual 10y agoI have an idea. Everybody mind their own fucking business and stop prying into everyone elses.
- newintellectual 10y agoI have an idea. Everybody mind their own fucking business, and stop trying to pry into everyone else's.
- nickez 10y agoI would prefer the other way around. Everything regarding the state should be open, even how much you pay in taxes.
- Zitrax 10y agoIn Portugal they are apparently kind of doing the opposite of Norway - publishing who did not pay the tax: http://www.e-financas.gov.pt/de/pubdiv/de-devedores.html http://www.e-financas.gov.pt/de/pubdiv/de-devedores.html
- Zitrax 10y agoComing from Sweden and being used to public tax records I was nevertheless a bit surprised at the transparency in Norway when anyone could look up anyone online anonymously. It made it extremely simple to for example create list of everyone at work or on your street (or use the data for any purpose). They later changed it in 2011 (?) such that the other person will get notified about who looked him/her up. I don't know if any other Nordic country went as far as Norway did during those years ? There was an estimate that Norwegians spent around 250.000 work hours per year looking up each other in the tax databases. There were also mobile apps being made when the databases were public that could for example show the richest people nearby.
- mongol 10y agoIt was the same in Sweden when Ratsit first opened. Around 2007 or so. And you can still do it for a charge, but the subject will be notified.
- digi_owl 10y agoIt used to be that each year the reported income and paid tax was printed and placed in a public location (local post office etc). Then some braniac thought they could save some money by just putting it all online. End result was that scrapers were set up etc.
- intothemild 10y agoHere in Oslo I was in a startup where we had a British CEO. He argued about me keeping my pay rise secret. I said there's no such thing. We all know what we earn. It's public. He was shocked. Then next day decided to tell everyone it was a fireable offence to disclose your salary. Which we then said. That the action of making it a fireable offence is actually illegal and a fireable offence. (He quit a number of months later)
- reitanqild 10y agoNorway is crazy but sweet. Edit: In fact salaries used to be even more public, printed out and left in public for review.
- danso 10y agoWhat is it now? I'm guessing it's not on the web, which would be vastly more public than in printed form?
- reitanqild 10y agoYep, but now whoever you check will receive a notice about who checked their salary. So basically nobody does anymore which is a shame in some ways. OTOH: Keeping everything wide open with no audit in the time of Internet and free access for East European criminals maybe wasn't the right way either. (E.g. you could plan a raid on rich old people based on electronically searchable archives.)
- danso 10y agoHa. That just reminded me of how I'm on a Texas gov page titled "Sex Offender Registry Export" because I once requested their sex offender database for academic research: https://records.txdps.state.tx.us/SexOffender/PublicSite/Application/Export/History.aspx https://records.txdps.state.tx.us/SexOffender/PublicSite/App... I don't mind since my name is so common, but I emailed the Texas agency that they should put a noindex tag to prevent the page from being used against people with less common names (you can register for the registry via what appears to be a system lacking verification).
- keiferski 10y agoThe Law of Jante is the description of a pattern of group behaviour towards individuals within Scandinavian communities that negatively portrays and criticises individual success and achievement as unworthy and inappropriate. The Jante Law as a concept was created by the Dano-Norwegian author Aksel Sandemose who, in his novel A Fugitive Crosses His Tracks (En flyktning krysser sitt spor, 1933, English translation published in the USA in 1936), identified the Law of Jante as ten rules. Sandemose's novel portrays the small Danish town Jante (modelled upon his native town Nykøbing Mors as it was at the beginning of the 20th century, but typical of all small towns and communities), where nobody is anonymous. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante
- xlance 10y agoThey recently made a small change to this. Now you can see a list of people who have checked your income. A lot of people stopped snooping after this change.
- RodericDay 10y agoI really wish that someone who is really opposed to salary-transparency would do a comprehensive pro- vs con- analysis of the issue, displaying that they truly understand all the arguments for. A lot of the opposition seems so glib and content with the status quo, showing very little charity to the idea, often based on very contrived scenarios, or on the failure of isolated one-off efforts (one factory switched, this happened...). Yes, it's true, you lose some privacy and there's weird stalking scenarios that could occur. However, on a social level, the positive mass externalities seem huge: - Fundamentally hardcore pro-market: More information makes for better economic agents. Full stop. - Undermine the status arms-race to display wealth. - Immediate career education for all kids everywhere. No more "wow I didn't know x job paid y", it's all out there in the open. - Easier to negotiate against big entities like HR as a "little guy" because you have similar info to them (which they pay for). - Less race/sex/etc based discrimination. - Bosses cannot ask workers to tighten their belts without also tightening their own. - Allow people to tie vague concepts ("how are teachers valued by society?") to real, meaningful personal experiences ("George is a great teacher and making a pittance compared to Greg the salesman!") I don't know. I'm totally into the idea. It seems like a thing that both hardcore free-market libertarians and left-wing people pining for the proletariat or w/e could both readily agree upon and promote together. The bulk of the opposition seems to be a fear of what could be done with the information, but the information is basically all out there already, in the hands of the people who already have a lot of power. Your boss drives a nicer car than you, and his boss an even nicer one. This would just let you actually do math with the numbers and calculate whether you want to shop around for jobs, rather than stay stuck with a vague impression.
- jomamaxx 10y ago" Easier to negotiate against big entities like HR as a "little guy" because you have similar info to them (which they pay for)." This if upside down - in fact - it will reinforce class. Do you know why your employer may ask in an interview: 'How much did you earn before'? Because they know if they offer you a little bit more than before, you'll probably take it - even if it's 'under market wages'. Someone who earns very little can be held to that lower income, and there's also a social stigma to it: if you're a low-income earner - you will be judged as less valuable than high income earners. People will judge the value of people by how much they earn - making it very difficult for working class people or students to move up. Also - it's a deep transgression of human rights. Your finances are your private information, nobody should have the right to see them unless there is a case for 'public good' i.e. public officials etc. Also - your idea of libertarian in this case is a little upside down - this is the opposite of classical liberalism. It's massive government overreach. Classical liberals would be very weary of having the government interfere in one's private life. By your logic - your bank account, your investments, land holdings etc. etc. could feasibly be public knowledge. All of those supposed 'good things' are intangible - there's no evidence they will happen (or are good). It's classic socialist folly: a 'do gooder idea that really is just more state control. I have no doubt that in some cases, income could be public information - for example, state officials should have to publish certain kinds of information - especially stock ownership and business contracts so that we can ward off corruption. But in general, we should be deferring to privacy.
- lervag 10y agoI think it is important to note that you can only see the amount of tax payed, not the actual income. This obviously correlates with strongly with income, but there are a lot of factors that affect the amount of tax payed. Person A and B with the same income might pay a very different amount of taxes. As others have also noted, if I wanted to learn the income of a fellow Norwegian, he would be notified that I had requested this info. This prevents a lot of snooping. I would suspect newspapers and magazines to be among those who request income information the most, and then typically they request information about the wealthiest and most powerful.
- Animats 10y agoThat used to be the case in the Washington, DC area, back when almost everybody was a GS-graded government employee. There was a wallet card with the GS levels and number of years in grade, showing the salary levels. That told you what someone made.
- jomamaxx 10y agoThis is a serious transgression of privacy and human rights. There is utterly no reason why most people should not most other people's income. Unless they are public reps, or have government dealings - or there is some kind of 'public good' - than this is basically an abuse of human rights. Why not make people's bank account statements or health records public?
- Numberwang 10y agoI don't see human rights coming down either side of the argument here. It's about what type of society you want to live in. Scandinavia tend to want to identify as a more social culture whereas others will want an individual based society. I think the one word someone from the outside should take with them about Scandinavia is "relax". Most things like these matter less than you think.
- jomamaxx 10y agoWhy don't you tell Chinese citizens who have government control their online behaviour 'for the purposes of social betterment' to 'relax'? "Scandinavia tend to want to identify as a more social culture whereas others will want an individual based society." Why do you speak for 100% of Scandinavians? How about the large portion of those who want nothing to do with this law? Shouldn't they be able to opt out? Let those who want to 'be social' (as you say it) publish their information online. The rest can have their basic rights to privacy protected. While I agree that it's probably not a huge deal overall - it is definitely a issue of rights and privacy, and a fairly serious one.
- Numberwang 10y agoWe have something called democracy going on up north. We decide our laws by vote. So those that are on the losing side of an issue will just have to live with it until laws change. Similarly to how various restrictions apply to drugs in the US.
- manarth 10y ago> I don't see human rights coming down either side of the argument here. Article 12 [1] begins "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy" I don't agree that publishing income is a breach of human rights, but I can see how people would argue that point. [1] http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/ http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/
- anovikov 10y agoI'd say it's a bad thing: a lot of consumption is a result of people's desire to show off. When everyone knows who makes what anyway, trying to show off will be stupid, so that activity will stop - severely hitting consumption, business revenues, profits, and the economy in general, probably resulting in a vicious cycle as people's incomes will be hit by bad business. Scandinavia may be exception from that because showing off isn't in their mentality anyway, so benefits (main of which is that more and more reliable information makes things better for economic agents) outweigh disadvantages. Not going to work well for most other countries.
- widforss 10y agoYou guys might be intererested in the Swedish site lexbase.se. They asked the courts for five years of records, cross-ran them with the population registration and presented the data using a search prompt taking a name or address as search terms. This is normally illegal as it violates some integrity laws, but it is ok under current legislation if you have a "utgivningsbevis", something you need to register for to use your freedom of speech in published writing. The site was poorly built and their full database was leaked nearly instantly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexbase https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexbase
- kajjffkk 10y agoLess laws please.
- bfuller 10y agoSalaries for non profit workers are public in the USA
- andythro77 10y agohi, am Doris, i had my friend help me hack my ex's email, facebook, whatsapp,and his phone cause i suspected he was cheating. all he asked for was a his phone number. he's email is (cyberlord7714@gmail.com)..IF u need help tell him Doris, referred you to him and he'll help. Am sure his going to help you do it, good luck