4 ms·

> Tax declarations are public information What was historical reason for this? I see it as a privacy invasion. Is it a case for GDPR?

jillesvangurp 7y ago
Socialism and strong unions basically. Your neighbor getting more than you is a big deal if you have strong unions. Privacy in the Nordics is a bit weird. Everybody is issued a person number when they are born which typically starts with their date of birth. This person number is routinely asked for on all sorts of administrative forms and would also be on the tax declaration along with an address. Before Finland, I also lived in Sweden briefly. When I turned 25 there, I received a letter from a local news paper (The Blekinge Länstidningen) asking me if I wanted to pay extra for printing a photo along with the happy birth day advertisement they were going to publish for free. They obviously got my name, address, and birthdate from the tax office and they did actually publish the ad (without the photo). Databases with addresses and person numbers were widely distributed. When renting a video tape, you'd simply give your person number and then they'd be able to look up your address. This was in 1999. So, yes, I imagine there are some GDPR issues with that :-).
yxhuvud 7y ago
The underlying reason is that we have a default that says that all documents produced by the different levels of government is public by default. This allows journalists and other investigators to expose bad stuff that is going on. Also note that just because something nominally is public, it doesn't automatically mean it is easily accessible. It can mean you have to go somewhere, submit forms and pay for the induced work load to produce the documents. Things can still be made secret if there are actual reasons to do that, like privacy reasons or security reasons etc. Taxes have traditionally not been counted into the things that require privacy here in Sweden.
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flurdy 7y ago
If it is public knowledge, then fraud becomes very hard. Also part of the egalitarian society that everyone should more or less earn the same, and nothing should be secret (at least to the gov). That all your income and assets are automatically sent into the tax office by your employers, estate agents, banks make fraud even harder. But it does make your self-assessment super easy, just mostly log in and approve the pre-calculated assessment. The digital transformation 15-20 years ago did have some issues initially when it became super easy to find out the income for all your neighbours, family and friends. It was open to all for a few years in Norway. I have to admit I could not resist the temptation then as well. They have subsequently tightened access. You can request to see someone' details, but you have to be logged in and they will be notified who viewed it. I think journalists still do that to view celebrities details every year as there are always articles in April about their earnings. Thankfully all the anonymised statistics are still public knowledge so you can easily compare how your earnings are with other people in your age group in your area etc. You think you can still see a top 10 of whom paid the most tax in your area, had the largest income, or have the most assets. Handy for some more dubious people, probably. My view is that public tax information is a good thing, on the whole. It creates greater transparency and harder to hide discrimination. It works in a society that is quite egalitarian, low crime and the public mostly trusts the government. It may not work as well in many other places.
TrackerFF 7y ago
Here in Norway, it's for transparency.
walshemj 7y ago
In which country are they public.

jillesvangurp 7y ago

Socialism and strong unions basically. Your neighbor getting more than you is a big deal if you have strong unions. Privacy in the Nordics is a bit weird. Everybody is issued a person number when they are born which typically starts with their date of birth. This person number is routinely asked for on all sorts of administrative forms and would also be on the tax declaration along with an address. Before Finland, I also lived in Sweden briefly. When I turned 25 there, I received a letter from a local news paper (The Blekinge Länstidningen) asking me if I wanted to pay extra for printing a photo along with the happy birth day advertisement they were going to publish for free. They obviously got my name, address, and birthdate from the tax office and they did actually publish the ad (without the photo). Databases with addresses and person numbers were widely distributed. When renting a video tape, you'd simply give your person number and then they'd be able to look up your address. This was in 1999. So, yes, I imagine there are some GDPR issues with that :-).

yxhuvud 7y ago

The underlying reason is that we have a default that says that all documents produced by the different levels of government is public by default. This allows journalists and other investigators to expose bad stuff that is going on. Also note that just because something nominally is public, it doesn't automatically mean it is easily accessible. It can mean you have to go somewhere, submit forms and pay for the induced work load to produce the documents. Things can still be made secret if there are actual reasons to do that, like privacy reasons or security reasons etc. Taxes have traditionally not been counted into the things that require privacy here in Sweden.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

flurdy 7y ago

If it is public knowledge, then fraud becomes very hard. Also part of the egalitarian society that everyone should more or less earn the same, and nothing should be secret (at least to the gov). That all your income and assets are automatically sent into the tax office by your employers, estate agents, banks make fraud even harder. But it does make your self-assessment super easy, just mostly log in and approve the pre-calculated assessment. The digital transformation 15-20 years ago did have some issues initially when it became super easy to find out the income for all your neighbours, family and friends. It was open to all for a few years in Norway. I have to admit I could not resist the temptation then as well. They have subsequently tightened access. You can request to see someone' details, but you have to be logged in and they will be notified who viewed it. I think journalists still do that to view celebrities details every year as there are always articles in April about their earnings. Thankfully all the anonymised statistics are still public knowledge so you can easily compare how your earnings are with other people in your age group in your area etc. You think you can still see a top 10 of whom paid the most tax in your area, had the largest income, or have the most assets. Handy for some more dubious people, probably. My view is that public tax information is a good thing, on the whole. It creates greater transparency and harder to hide discrimination. It works in a society that is quite egalitarian, low crime and the public mostly trusts the government. It may not work as well in many other places.

TrackerFF 7y ago

Here in Norway, it's for transparency.

walshemj 7y ago

In which country are they public.