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Submitted via IRC for Bytram
This week the British papers revelled in news about how much the BBC's on-air stars get paid, though the salaries of their counterparts in commercial TV remain under wraps. In Norway, there are no such secrets. Anyone can find out how much anyone else is paid - and it rarely causes problems.
In the past, your salary was published in a book. A list of everyone's income, assets and the tax they had paid, could be found on a shelf in the public library. These days, the information is online, just a few keystrokes away. The change happened in 2001, and it had an instant impact.
"It became pure entertainment for many," says Tom Staavi, a former economics editor at the national daily, VG.
"At one stage you would automatically be told what your Facebook friends had earned, simply by logging on to Facebook. It was getting ridiculous."
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-40669239
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday July 24 2017, @02:43AM (5 children)
Not so much... In Denmark they scale your speeding tickets as a percentage of annual income.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday July 24 2017, @06:21AM (4 children)
If the money don't show well then there's nothing to scale to.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday July 24 2017, @12:44PM (3 children)
I'm sure that Scandinavia has just as many tax evaders as everywhere else in the world, but the big fish will find it hard to hide in those little economies - and tax evasion is just as, if not more, serious in the land of high tax for high social benefits.
If you're running an internet porn site and keeping your income offshore, maybe you'd get away with it, but if you're living large in Scandinavia and spending the money you make there where they can see it... you'll be called out for underreporting of income faster than the US or Southern Europe.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 24 2017, @02:32PM (2 children)
I'm sure there are ways to ensure that the majority of that money never enters those little economies. You were buying a Yacht in some Arab country? How would Denmark even learn about it? Especially if it was not you who showed up as buyer, but a straw person. Oh, you are using it? Well, you are "renting" it from that straw person (who promptly pays the "rent", minus some provision, into your secret offshore account).
(Score: 2) by aclarke on Monday July 24 2017, @02:57PM (1 child)
You get busted because you're at a party bragging about your yacht, and someone behind you overhears. He looks up your income and assets, and sees that there's no way someone with your reported assets owns a yacht. He then reports you, and you get audited and busted. According to the article, this does happen.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday July 24 2017, @10:15PM
The tax men are very happy with the productivity improvements provided by facebook.
"So, Mr second-grade teacher, let's go over the 4 bikini-clad "friends" who were with you on that 60-footer which a "friend" was letting you use in Nassau"