Did you know that in Norway, the government does your taxes for you? Each year they send you your filled out tax return, in case you have any corrections to make, but other than that, it’s all taken care of. Of course, in order to calculate this, they have access to all of your financial records, bank account activity, etc.

As a side note, they still have lots of accountants. That comment is directed at people who say that accountants who think that Fair Tax won’t work are only concerned about losing their jobs since there won’t be tax work for us anymore. Apparently, not the case.

Another trade-off to living in Norway, and one that is overwhelming in its implications: they publish a list of everyone’s taxable income, assets, and total tax for the year.

You can check this out at skattelister.no, but I’ll warn you that it’s all in Norwegian. It’s also more interesting if you know some Norwegians that you can look up. Here’s an example where I searched for Norway’s prime minister, Jens Stoltenberg.

Some people among the personal finance bloggers share their monthly income, or their net worth. Others are not so comfortable with the idea of announcing to the world how much money they make. One of my favorite articles that touches on this is Babci’s Rules of Personal Finance, from First Gen American. It’s right there, rule #9 - “Never tell anyone how much money you have.” Babci’s possible outcomes from this: people will resent you, people will think that they’re better than you, or people will try to take it from you.

I suppose the topic of whether a government should be able to decide to release this information is sort of a moot point, since Norway is the type of government where, yes, government gets to make those decisions. But who is the wiser in this case - Babci or Norway?

Hopefully Norway will conduct some sort of study on how this affects their populace. (Because there’s nothing Norway loves more than a good study documenting Norwegians.) How does it affect communities when people can look up their neighbor or co-worker’s salary with a few quick clicks on the internet? Working at a place where people have been fired in the past for discussing their salaries with co-workers, it’s so strange to see the completely opposing mindset in Norway.