61–70 of 172 posts
What? 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.
I'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.
1. Why would you report that you earn more than you do, then you would just pay more tax than you had to?
2. Why would the employer care that you earn more in total than they pay you?
I'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.
Might be me missing something cultural here. 1. Why would you report that you earn more than you do, then you would just pay more tax than you had to? 2. Why would the employer care that you earn more in total than they pay you?
It 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 te…
This 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..
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
For 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)
I 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 pe…
Transparency for political decisions is important as is privacy.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you considered the alternative approach of talking to people? A lot less creepy than cyber stalking their tax reports.
not 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…
I'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.
When would that be the case? When you have another job on the side? How is that your employer's business?
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.