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Comment by vidarh | Hacker News Reader

In Norway, taxable income is public information. It used to be that it was so public that newspapers would put up searchable databases where you could enter name and postcode to get a list of everyones income and fortune. It's been restricted a little bit. The idea is that it acts as a deterrent to tax evasion and money laundering (your neighbour gets suspicious about that new Ferrari you bought) etc..

I don't really have much of an opinion about whether it's good or bad - people mostly don't care other than 5 minutes of excitement when the numbers were out when online news sites still published them.

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They do that in Ontario (and possibly other jurisdictions), but only with Public employees and only over $100,000.

The idea is that "my taxes pay your salary", so the public has a right to know in that situation.

In the case of a private company, it's confidential corporate information. Publicly owned companies have their own reporting rules (generally only requiring disclosure for officers).

When I first heard about how easy it was to look up a person's income in Norway, I was blown away. I'd personally hate for that information to be public. I think perhaps in Norway, there is a bit less disparity in incomes, it's a little closer to equal. The wealthy are also heavily taxed. So it makes things a little less uncomfortable when your friends, colleagues, family members, etc. know exactly how much you make.

That's true. I'm Norwegian, but live in England now, and I make a lot more here than what I would in Norway, and my neighbours make a lot less here than what they would in ordinary "blue collar" jobs in Norway. But I think also the novelty wears off very quickly. It was fun to "spy" on friends and neighbours once or twice, but then it just starts feeling a bit icky.

It was mostly the media who got off on this, to the point of creating mobile apps that gave you information about how much people near you made. Ridiculous. I'm glad it's been restricted in that regard.

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