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Comment by eloff | Hacker News Reader

Some countries have public tax returns (Sweden? Norway? One of those Nordic countries.)

I think probably they should be public data.

That aside, for very rich people, having them be public is in the interest of the public as it reveals the shady stuff they do to dodge taxes (legally.)

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Debating wether tax returns should or should not be public is a great debate to have, I agree. The country should be having that debate. And if we decide tax returns should be made public, it should happen in the future so everyone is on the same page.

The fact is that US tax returns are private information, regardless of what other countries are doing or what you and I think should be done.

> Debating wether tax returns should or should not be public is a great debate to have, I agree. The country should be having that debate. And if we decide tax returns should be made public, it should happen in the future so everyone is on the same page.

The same way the Snowden leaks were instrumental into regulation about surveillance, leaks like this are instrumental in crafting better tax policy, so I would say they are a public good. It's also not-quite possible to do it via completely legal means (as vested interest opposition is too big and has too much capital - the only way to battle against them seems to be to do it via not-so-legal means).

So in this case the fight is punching up against people in positions of power, not down onto people that have no power, so I don't see a direct issue with it. If you have power, you should also have the proportionate responsibility.

"Responsibility" is a very strange word in your comment to me.

Snowden leaked government program details. How in the world is that the same about thousands of private citizens (aka not public figures) personal financial details?

How are these individuals not being "responsible"?

The only unresponsible person is the person(s) who leaked the details, and ProPublica for monetizing it.

We have a disagreement in what makes a public figure then. I believe that over a certain level of wealth, the wealth alone makes someone a public figure or a figure of significance (since wealth = power, and public status also = power, and celebrity status = power).

If someone is powerful enough to have power over other people (which the wealthy certainly are), then they should account for that power with appropriate responsibility.

If you don't want to be a public figure, don't accumulate exorbitant amounts of wealth.

When I say public figure (which Mr. Thiel is, despite his harassment by Gawker and other quirks, but I get your point) I am referring to the thousands of non-public figures who have had their personal tax details stolen and shared with ProPublica, who seemingly did nothing to deserve this.

It is in the public's interest to transparently understand the activities and finances of anyone with outsized political power. Since money is freely convertible to and from political power, people with outsized amounts of money have outsized political power, and are therefore public figures. Are ProPublica publishing details of people who are not rich?

Do you know today what they will do with these thousands of files on other people’s personal details?

Do you think they will just… delete them? Because if so I’ve got a great time traveling hot tub to sell you

Welcome to the great panopticon remember the Telescreen sees all citizen.

You want family and friends to know exactly how much you make?

That's extremely problematic for a lot of people.

Congress already has access to tax returns for the purpose of writing tax legislation. It's not perfect but I really don't want my finances public, and I'm not doing anything shady.

Imagine hooking up the public tax returns to an image recognition system and database built from social media. It should be possible to create a dating app for women that lets you see the wealth of people on tinder, in the street, at a party. Men might also use that, but they already have their ideal "rating by physical appearance" app in tinder. Some gender differences are persistent throughout all human history.

There are some downsides to be sure.

I can see some reasons to not wanting your wealth public if you are reasonably worried that it would attract unwanted attention.

I can see why people tend to err on the side of privacy, but it doesn't seem to have destroyed Norwegian society to have public records.

I think it's a reasonable thing to discuss, then at least we can get some pros and cons out there.

seems like corporate tax transparency would be a good first step.

> Congress already has access to tax returns for the purpose of writing tax legislation.

while that is the law that Congress can request/subpoena returns under §6103(f) of Title 26 [1], if it can just be ignored then Congress doesnt really have access.

[1] https://irc.bloombergtax.com/public/uscode/doc/irc/section_6...

> if it can just be ignored then Congress doesnt really have access.

Then fix that! Why do you have to go to the absolute extreme here and make everyone's finances public?

Yes, this is the most pragmatic way to deal with privacy issue, as much as possible information has to be make public for everyone.

>You want family and friends to know exactly how much you make?

Not really but I would like the information to be public, that is they don't have to know but if they want to know they can.

Its great that I don't have to hide it or worry about it being leaked.

If this information being public cause me trouble then we'll find a way to solve that issue rather than fixing it by hiding the information.

> that is they don't have to know but if they want to know they can.

For the people that I'm defending here, there's no difference.

> Its great that I don't have to hide it or worry about it being leaked.

...so are you saying you're worried about a law like this?

> Yes, this is the most pragmatic way to deal with privacy issue, as much as possible information has to be make public for everyone.

I'm guessing you think the best way to deal with revenge porn is to have everyone post nude photos of themselves publicly?

>so are you saying you're worried about a law like this

What law are you referring to ?

>I'm guessing you think the best way to deal with revenge porn is to have everyone post nude photos of themselves publicly?

Yes, then fix the problem that cause by the photos being public, instead of making the photo private.

As technology progresses, trying to stop the flow of information is become harder and harder.

I rather we embrace the flow of information then we solve whatever issue that come up.

"You want family and friends to know exactly how much you make? That's extremely problematic for a lot of people."

Can you explain why it's problematic?

Family can be very manipulative when they know you have much more money than them. It can end up massively hurting relationships.

I don't even tell my parents how much I make.

"Family can be very manipulative when they know you have much more money than them."

As I suspected, this is mainly a problem of the rich.

Most of the rest of us don't make much more money than anybody.

So are we going to make our laws to advantage the rich or the vast and ever growing majority of the population who aren't and never will be rich?

Ah yes, I'm the problem, paying around 40% in taxes.

People making 6-figures a year are not the ones manipulating the financial system. HN is particularly in this category.

But go ahead and lump me in with someone with like 6000x my net worth.

You don't have to be a billionaire to be part of the problem (though it helps).

I'm part of the problem with abuse of tax loopholes? What are you talking about?

I have lived in 4 countries, and 3 continents and everyone I have lived with agreed that it's not useful for the whole family to know how much you make.

Last year I learned that lesson the hard way...

some countries have nude beaches but not sure if you want your private photos leaked to the public.

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