photo credit: Randi Hausken CC BY-SA 2.0
In Norway, it turns out, income tax returns are public, sort of. Apparently you need to be Norwegian, or know somebody who’ll let you use their government registration number. And the taxpayer will know who has looked at her information. Authorities say “We like people to do searches which could help us in investigating tax evasion…” Logically, if taxes on income are a major source of public revenue, it makes sense that the public should be able to see the details of how these amounts are determined.
And in Norway, like most places, big landowners are able to minimize their tax:
The tax lists only tell you people’s net income, net assets and tax paid. Someone with a vast property portfolio, for instance, would probably be worth far more than the figure found in the lists, because the taxable property value is often far less than the current market value.
Just to be perfectly clear, I am not suggesting that U S and Illinois income tax returns should be open to public inspection. That would be a second-best solution. The best solution is to abolish the income tax, as well as most other taxes, and obtain revenue for legitimate government costs thru public collection of land rent.
h/t Slashdot which was my original link to the BBC article.