The information panopticon, Norway edition

Yes, I'm sure under that scenario no one would ever look inside someone else's cube to see their neighbours naked.

Ethics would no doubt abound.

I think if everyone knew what everyone else was doing behind closed doors, the standard of what is viewed as acceptible behavior might be loosened.

Its an interesting social experiment no doubt. People put their lives out to the world on facebook. they publish their schedules, lists of friends, histories of relationships, photos, video etc. Now the information about what assets they own is public.

I predict that tax cheaters will fall dramatically under this program. People behave in a more responsible manner when they thing there is a chance their neighbors could be watching them.

I predict that tax cheaters will fall dramatically under this program

I predict that tax revenues will fall dramatically under this program, as large numbers of people making large amounts of money leave Norway.

It's one thing to charge wealthy people large amounts in taxes for the public good. It's quite another to charge wealthy people large amounts of taxes for the public good and then also publish their personal financial information on a government website.

I disagree, you cannot force people to behave ethically. This will just cause people to exploit the system in different ways. And the damage it does to the personal and private lives of its citizens is immeasurable.

You knew the rules before you started playing the game. No one is making you work for an Ontario university – go work in any other province if you don't want people looking at your tax returns. Ontario's rules are no different than publishing salary information of executives at publicly traded companies.

This is a crazy idea. It's like someone in HR emailing out the salary list for the entire country.

I'm actually uncomfortable with those Sunshine laws myself, particularly the fact that it's not tied to inflation, so every year more and more people are on that list just because (pretty much) every year $100,000 is less than it used to be (and yet people complain that every year more and more people are on the list!). So, you can actually lose purchasing power (wrt inflation) but as long as your salary goes up you end up making the list eventually. However, at least in that case the people who's salaries are being paid are, ostensibly, "public servants" (and again, I question having every University staff member or Hospital staff member being lobbed in with MPPs and City Counselors in this way, but having been established, it'll never get taken down now…).

Of course, I work for a University too, so some day I may very well be on one of those lists (hopefully!) so I do have an admitted bias (and again, to harp on the inflation thing, by the time I make that list I'll be living in a little $500,000 condo paying $3500 a month in mortgage/condo fee payments, and the average elementary school teacher will be making $90,000 – so that $100,000 salary won't be so impressive!). Even with my own discomfort with that Sunshine statute though, I do recognize that it is almost ENTIRELY different from publishing everyone's tax returns!

One consequence will be a period of tension in all workplaces. In a typical workplace, employees earn different amounts and the financial terms between employees and employers are kept private. Nobody really knows what other employees earn except through private, trusted conversations.

Are we sure income taxes were originally introduced as a temporary measure in Norway?

Don't be so certain he "knew the rules before [he] started playing the game", it's entirely possible he's been working at Ivey since long before this law was passed. Certainly many, many people were!

You're certainly correct that no one's forcing him to work for an Ontario University though. If the best and brightest choose to leave Ontario and go work somewhere where their salary won't be published in the local paper every year they certainly have that option.

I'm not sure we should encourage them to do so though!

I started after the rules came out (1998?). It's a moot point for me anyway since unless I get a gigantic raise, I'm not going to cross the 100K threshold.

Of course, I guess it does apply to me in the sense that everyone knows that I don't make 100K. But given I'm only a part-timer, I think anyone who knows me would assume I'm well under that anyway.

In a typical workplace, employees earn different amounts and the financial terms between employees and employers are kept private

Not in a unionized workplace. Just look up the employee classification in the union contract and you know what he's being paid, except for overtime of course, but it's not hard to estimate the number of OT hours a guy works.

Also sounds like a great reason to stop reporting income. Like kids who don't want their parents to know they are working during the school year. Or employees who don't want their bosses to know that they work a second job, which is restricted in some industries.