Everyone’s Income Taxes Should Be Public
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
1. People kidnap your child, knowing you can pay ransom.
2. People jump in front of your car, knowing you can pay when sued.
3. People break into your house, knowing you have things worth stealing.
4. People hack into your private photos, knowing you can pay blackmail.
Anonymity is the most important defense against the evils of man. They don't hurt you now, because they don't _know_ to hurt you.
The government provides no bodyguards. The police investigates only after the crime. Anonymity is the most important defense. Don't take it away.
I live in post-comunist country and I've seen crimes on the street back then and now.
I can't tell you how wonderful it is that people you meet on the streets have something of their own, something they would risk loosing by attacking you.
Reduced income inequality is, according to TFA, a second order effect of publishing tax records.
Hell, I could probably locate a large list of rich people to go kidnap/rob/extort within 15 km of you just from online sources from the other side of the planet.
These problems you posit already exist for people with wealth and they (hopefully) take appropriate steps to protect themselves.
- Renault 5 Turbo: now worth anywhere between £60,000 and £120,000
- Peugeot 205 GTI: £15,000 to £20,000
- Ford Sierra Cosworth RS500: one recently sold for £113,000 (https://www.evo.co.uk/ford/ford-sierra/20210/ford-sierra-cos...)
Not to mention that there are many other already public & private records that already can provide information on wealth (company ownership records, house ownership records, etc...)
Personally, I'm not sure I'm so super happy with this system, but it's very much in tune with our culture where being in a significantly better position than the average is seen as suspect.
A perhaps internationally unusual thing this creates is that entire police investigations, including interview transcripts, are usually available to download as soon as court proceedings begin.
As a side note, this transparency helps expose potential corruption in handling evidence, awarding defense contracts, etc.
All incoming and outgoing correspondence is kept on a public record and can be requested. So if you send in a request per e-mail or post, it can be accessed. But you can still can in anonymously or walk in to their office and request it physically, without having to identify yourself.
Source: Used to work as a journalist in Sweden, dealt a lot with requesting information from governmental and military organizations.
Everyones's reported income, address, date of birth, family and a whole lot more information is publicly available on request. If you have particular reasons (e.g. threat of violence), you can request to have your identity hidden and exempt from public disclosure.
Fairly common to hear that some person has been placed under police protection.
If someone lives in Palo Alto it's a very high likelihood they have a lot of money or insurance that will pay out a lot.
[1]http://edition.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/05/21/jefferson.search/...
http://amp.timeinc.net/time/money/5498143/eddie-lampert-tryi...
I would think we already have extremely predictive, though broad (e.g. interval censored), indicators of income and wealth that are sufficient to cause the threats you mention. Currently, we can map ZIP code to income. And we can map targeted names to ZIP code, or use consumer files to map large numbers of names to ZIP code.
There may theoretically exist a class of recluse who lives in a shack but makes a gajillion dollars. That person would be partially de-anonymized by this process. But under the current threat model, there are paper-poor people living in expensive or apparently expensive places who face additional risk as well. Net-net, hard to say which group has more people.
If the costs are the same, then the argument should focus primarily around the comparative benefits. That's a case I expect the article and other comments can articulate better than I can.
Does people that make more money keep it private thou? I see what cars people have, what neighborhood they live in, what clothes they wear, ... The tax returns mainly show how fare people is taxed and gives you information on how are your skills valued in the system.
Your arguments can also be used to not show public prices for cars, houses, clothes... but, we do it. It is just salaries that are hidden. But my manager knows my salary. And big corporations know the salary of hundred of thousands of employees. So, it is hidden only of part of the population.
This seems an appeal to fear without much justification.
> 2. People jump in front of your car, knowing you can pay when sued.
People drives Ferraris. I do not need to know your economic situation to know that your Ferrari has a good insurance. Is people constantly jumping in front of Ferraries?
> 3. People break into your house, knowing you have things worth stealing.
Thieves know which neighborhoods are richer than the others.
> 4. People hack into your private photos, knowing you can pay blackmail.
This has been done to rich and poor alike.
> The government provides no bodyguards. The police investigates only after the crime. Anonymity is the most important defense. Don't take it away.
I cannot understand how a comment with false information is the top comment. Of course police investigates suspicious activities even before there is a crime. What are you talking about?
I think that your fear is real. But it is not justified. The goal of letting others see the salaries is to get a more efficient job market. I can know if my salary is 30% below the average, or if I should change industry. It is a very useful information for the general population.
Also NYT: Everyone's income taxes should be public
What a bizarre half-baked (obviously political) response to something in the news. It's really sad that the bar for what gets published in a major newspaper is so low.
That some of them are contradictory is consistent with that goal.
It's essentially a piece promoting a policy that would be probably the single largest attack on the right to privacy in the history of the US. Why? Because a president the author doesn't like refused to release his tax returns. Very measured response. I'm sure there would be no unintended consequences.
It’s a policy that’s standard in several Northern European nations generally recognized as civilized and a good place to live.
You may consider it vile but from the perspective of the NY editorial board I don’t see why they would.
This is ridiculous. I'm from a country with public tax records, and wholeheartedly support it. It definitely needs to be part of discussion when deciding how to tackle tax avoidance, corruption, and wealth disparity.
I've never checked my friends' or colleagues' taxes, even if I could. It's quite important that the tax records of the notable figures are public though.
Generally, I see the concept of "you shouldn't be able to know anything about me, but I should be able to know everything about you" everywhere.
Notably in tech circles, this is prevalent in how we see hacking.
People who hack into other people's computers, IT people who snoop onto employee accounts, and people who support personal data breaches like the Fappening (saying stuff like "if they don't want to have their images become public, they shouldn't have taken them"), and publishing of personal emails (e.g. Wikileaks), all have had conversations with me complaining that Facebook is violating their privacy rights. None have recognized that what they are involved in is way, way worse than anything that Facebook has done.
The problem with the NYT is that every sentence within it now has to be processed with this perspective in mind.
Wow. I really will never understand how some people can make such bizarre leaps of logic like this.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/business/yourtaxes/14disc...
In public sector, your salary is posted on a website. Everyone knows what you make, and thing like women and minorities getting paid less don’t happen. Outliers are known.
These can are not really income etc as it depends on deductions which can change them a lot.
Not really, you just make sure all the women and minorities get the poor paying jobs.
Even if you are better or have more experience at a certain job, most companies won't want to deal with public pressure or employee jealousy.
If you look at the wages of Norway for instance, they are almost all the same across the board over multiple industries.
You have effectively removed the wage gap, by making most people poorer. This doesn't sound like a good thing to me. Why can't we remove the age gap, by investing in education and helping people earn a better living? Why does it always have to involve taking money out of the pockets of everyone else?
Most of the tax take is from a very small percentage of people. They deserve more persistent and public recognition of the disproportionate contribution they make.
There are great arguments for keeping tax records private, but it would be a nice respectful idea to have a bit more public recognition and thanks directed towards major taxpayers.
Top 10% share of total AGI: 46.56%
Top 10% share of total income taxes paid: 69.47%
I don’t think nearly 70% is “about half”.
Here is a source that looks at all taxes: https://itep.org/wp-content/uploads/taxday2017.pdf
I'm not trying to be nasty here, but something in your question is off. My answer is obvious - 10% handling 50% of the taxes implies the 10% are contributing 9 times as much as everyone else since (50 / 10) is 9x (50 / 90).
> why should we be thankful for people just for pulling their own weight?
If contributing 9x as much as everyone else is pulling their own weight, what exactly are we supposed to think about the average person? I happen to think the average person is pulling their own weight, and that the 10% are probably pulling 8 other people along.
I'm going to guess you are struggling to put your opinion into words - maybe you think that because paying taxes is involuntary it should be taken for granted.
That is exactly the type of attitude that makes me say taxpayers deserve a bit more recognition - firstly a group of people have been identified as highly productive, secondly they have been made to contribute to broader society. So far so good, they can complain a lot about that state of affairs and get ignored if they want.
However to then turn around and say they are 'only' pulling their weight and should be taken for granted is actually mean spirited. Even if you think the rich should be paying more tax than they are now, they still deserve recognition for being the primary dynamo behind everything the government does. To say nothing of the average taxpayer who also deserves a bit of respect for making a contribution. It isn't that easy to be in a position to pay taxes, it takes hard work.
That seem rather unkind. I’m going to guess this conversation is not worth continuing.
I think those points are correct, but if not how about responding to me instead with any clear rebuttal?
"The country grants citizens the ability to request anyone else's tax returns with just one phone call. The only catch: The person whose returns you request will know it was you."
https://www.businessinsider.de/sweden-salaries-freely-availa...
US: 18.5 Norway: 6.5
The ratio of the average income of the richest 10% to the poorest 10%
From wikipedia [1]:
The petroleum industry accounts for around a quarter of the country's gross domestic product (GDP).On a per-capita basis, Norway is the world's largest producer of oil and natural gas outside of the Middle East.
Now I realize that you were probably just saying that Norway and US are comparable in terms of GDP per capita. Am I correct?
You can of course get semi-anonymity by paying someone else to perform the search for you, but it's not really done much. Companies are generally nicer in Norway anyway, likely due to our lack of minimum wage, CLAs and tripartite cooperation model.
More states are implementing laws so prospective employers cannot ask or base a salary offer on prior wages. This should positively effect gender and racial inequality at least during hiring. This would render all that protection moot.
Maybe. Unless, of course, management's income is absurdly high compared to that of their hires and then the hires decide to unionize in retaliation leading to again upward pressure. And if management's income isn't absurdly higher, then there's no real problem with the scenario because now everyone's being compensated fairly.
The downside, of course, is that this makes it even more difficult to participate in the informal (unreported) economy. To some people that would be an advantage, but I think it's a downside. Surveillance pushes people towards appearing normal and normal, in this case, would be keeping all your money on the books. However, this seems like the lesser of two evils compared to the rampant inequality we face.
What possible value will that add to me? What possible value will knowing how much your neighbor make help you?
The only thing I see it helps with is attempting to bring down people above yourself. Which IMO is not the point of a society. It should provide safety, to everyone, and be as unobtrusive as possible, in doing so.
You can already FOIA request and get all the anonymized data you want on this. So I don’t understand.
https://reason.com/2018/12/19/you-cant-use-foia-to-get-someo...
I can however FOIA request medical claims for a region. Thus keeping the data anonymous
https://illinoiscomptroller.gov/financial-data/state-expendi...
Also does that info include your income from other sources like dividends or a hobby? If not, then it’s nowhere bear comparable to what’s being proposed.
I can see a case being made for full-disclosure for politicians, but the case for private individuals is harder. If the goal is to hold politicians accountable, why should i other who who are not politicians disclose?
fiddle their taxes
Isn't that the job of the IRS to determine
Why is it important that everyone’s income taxes are public?
For the average American, what benefit or detriment does having their income taxes publicly accessible serve?
There’s many ways it could make life worse for those that are not: rich, politicians, or executives. It’s also a great way for the “ultra rich” to pit the “lower classes” against each other. If people knew their friends’, coworkers’, and family’s income taxes, then it’s an invitation for drama, jealousy, and fighting. Everyone would be comparing themselves against everyone else - like what happens on social media, except with more important monetary figures instead of imaginary internet points. In my opinion, that would further divide people rather than unify them.
If someone is a politician, a civil servant representative of the people, then their income taxes should be public as a gesture of government transparency. If people voted someone into office, they have a right to know about who is going to be representing them (at least in my opinion). Many government workers’ salaries are already public information, but it’s easier to be getting much more money from non-salary places the higher up (or the more high profile) someone in the government is. That’s what the real value of seeing their income tax is.
The same income tax transparency should, potentially, also be the case for anyone paid using the public’s tax dollars to deter corruption, kickbacks, and behavior not fitting the public interest.
For the non-wealthy or non-government individuals, what is gained by knowing the income taxes of some random person reporting $50k/yr? Even if someone reported $100+k/yr income, depending on where they live and what their expenses are it doesn’t guarantee they have a lot of cash on hand or valuable convertible assets. If anything, it gives scammers and thieves more ability to assess people’s refunds and try to steal them (as currently happens). In that sense, there isn’t much public benefit being gained for most individuals.
If you stop to think-- really think-- about all the ideas that are springing out of the ground in opposition to one political candidate, you would see how crazy things have become. The electoral college, the number of seats on SCOTUS, etc. etc. It's wild.
Luckily, sanity will prevail.
The problem with the hypothesis here is that it suggests that public opinion be the arbiter of what is fair for a very individual level. In our age of social media indignation how could any individual get a fair shake? An angry populist sentiment can selectively cherry pick unpopular or polarizing figures to whatever ends they choose.
No thanks.
Want to solve the tax-avoidance problem? Stop taxing income - tax spending. Jealousy over other peoples incomes, fairly or unfairly gained, will never result in a fair system for all, and this is the basis of income tax - whereas taxing people for spending will result in us all contributing taxes to society fairly.
You have a valid point. But, this system works in other countries. People is able to ask for other citizens taxes. But, the person "investigated" gets a notification of whom asked fir its tax returns.
> Stop taxing income - tax spending.
This makes very easy to accumulate wealth and it is difficult to apply progressive taxing.
> Jealousy over other peoples incomes, fairly or unfairly gained, will never result in a fair system for all
Capitalism is based in information. Without information citizens cannot take good decisions. And that is why there is people earning very low salaries for the same jobs that others are getting a good pay.
I personally do not think that jealousy plays a role here. I know that my boss makes more money that me. That may cause jealousy. If my college does the same job that me (or worse) and I get paid less I can leave for another company. If another company pays more than mine, I can leave. If I am very good paid, I will appreciate it more as I know the market.
To hide salaries is as reasonable as to hide product prices. It will break the system.
You're quite rational. Based on my experience, money is one of those things where emotions take over for many people. I agree it should work the way you want it to work, but I'm not sure it could in practice across the general population.
Yes. People makes mistakes. But this is the same rationality to forbid democracy. And even in its imperfection it is a good system. Let people know and as a society we will learn how to use that information.
So, yes. Some people will want more money. But, the company still can say no to them if the rise they ask for is unreasonable.
I think people downplay the seriousness of this issue. Instead looking inward "how can I make more money" many people look outward "why is so and so making more, they should make less". Is the population as a whole ready to live in a what is effectively a pro-sports environment and be reminded every day they are valued $X less than so and so.
Through experience of managing people who have made more than me I've learned that I'm ok with the information. But, people in general are super weird about money. I've seen other people be really bothered because someone made just a bit more than them without ever stopping to think why. I also have friends that I can have frank conversations about our salaries, but other friends who I have to avoid the conversation completely.
For the fact of attitudes persisting, it is a matter of values. Values across the language-/culture- barrier gap, are equated, causatively in realtime by the people of the cultures, according to a near-infinite set of whim. Religions are a form of this whim, as are governments, and many, many other institutions, incapable also of crossing the language-/culture- barrier gap, settle on the easy way out: "dollar-*" value.
Alas, this is the nature of the materialist beast.
I'm quite okay with people knowing each others salaries, if they are expected to work with each other. No really successful group survives its internal secrecy liabilities, at least not for long, imho ..
+EDIT: cause/effect? I think it's both. Across a multitude of impinging factors.
In theory this should make everyone better, but practice is different. I used professional sports earlier because I think that is a good example. There is very little hiding there, and people know who is better for the most part.
Jiu Jitsu is a great example IMO because it's person vs. person. You can tell a lot about someones personality the first time to roll with someone. When they get beat (which they will - even by someone who is physically weaker), do they get mad or do they get excited to learn how it happened? The former never comes back because their ego will not allow it, and the later wants to learn how it was done.