SWEDES discuss their incomes with a frankness that would horrify Britons or Americans. They have little reason to be coy; in Sweden you can learn a stranger\u2019s salary simply by ringing the tax authorities and asking. . . .\u00a0In 2001, tax records in Norway were put online, allowing anyone to see easily what other Norwegians had earned and paid in tax. . . .\u00a0Even Nordic governments continue to tweak their policies: in 2014 Norway banned anonymous searching of its tax database, so citizens could see who had nosed around their finances.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Isn\u2019t this a mindblowingly-bizarre concept?<\/p>\n
Sure, I can understand the notion that employers would pay everyone fairly if they knew that it was open information.\u00a0 And government employees generally are paid according to published payscales.\u00a0 If I know how many years my schoolteacher-neighbor has been teaching, and how much education past the bachelor\u2019s she has, I could go online and look up her salary.\u00a0 But everyone<\/em>?<\/p>\nNow, you could say, \u201cthat just wouldn\u2019t be something that decent people would do.\u201d\u00a0 But you can visualize all manner of scenarios.<\/p>\n
Your neighbor has a tree with a branch over the lot line.\u00a0 The tree is old and you\u2019re worried that is could be felled in the next storm and damage your roof, and you want your neighbor to get the tree removed, but he claims he doesn\u2019t have the money to hire a tree-removal company.\u00a0 You want to know if he\u2019s being honest or not.<\/p>\n
Or, likewise, your neighbor\u2019s son broke your window while playing baseball.\u00a0 Again, they claim poverty.<\/p>\n
Or your brother says, \u201cgee, we\u2019d love to help with Mom & Dad\u2019s home health care, or visit more often, but we just can\u2019t afford it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Or your sister builds an expensive addition onto their house, and you want to know if they\u2019re managing their money wisely or not.<\/p>\n
Or your kids complain because all their friends go to Disney for spring break, and you\u2019re second-guessing your financial decisions:\u00a0 are you being more frugal than those families, or do they all earn more than you, so that it\u2019s perfectly reasonable for them to go to Disney while you go to grandma\u2019s?<\/p>\n
Would you refrain from pulling up their tax records, if you could do so anonymously?\u00a0 If you\u2019re in a dispute, would you do so even if your name would be provided to the other person?<\/p>\n
And how would you feel about the idea that anyone could find out your own pay?\u00a0 Anyone, including a sibling who might decree that, since you\u2019ve got so much money, you don\u2019t need to inherit any of Mom & Dad\u2019s money.\u00a0 \u00a0Or including a community group looking to hit people up for donations.\u00a0 Or a prospective employer who wants to know how much pay you have any right to expect.<\/p>\n
I could continue to list examples, but you get the idea.\u00a0 Readers, can you wrap your head around this any better than I can?<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Image:\u00a0https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File%3AMoney_Cash.jpg; By Jericho [CC BY 3.0 (http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.\u00a0 Yes, I have one generic \u201ccash\u201d image.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Apparently, this is a thing in Scandinavia.\u00a0 According to The Economist, SWEDES discuss their incomes with a frankness that would horrify Britons or Americans. They have little reason to be coy; in Sweden you can learn a stranger\u2019s salary simply by ringing the tax authorities and asking. . . .\u00a0In 2001, tax records in Norway […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":5466,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[775,400],"class_list":["post-7625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-salary","tag-scandinavia"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/p>\n