Should your tax and income be publically available information?!

How would you feel if anyone could find out your total income? Or your total tax paid? In Australia it’s a pretty taboo subject how much we all earn. Would you feel comfortable if I asked you what you earnt last year?

Well, for the past 200 years in Norway this information has been publically available. In an attempt to be totally transparent, you can go online and check out how much your neighbour earnt and how much tax they paid.

Norway is ranked in the top five on Transparency International’s Corruptions perception index. Australia isn’t far behind, at 13/168 and aims to be in the top 10. Perhaps in the wake of the Panama Papers scandal we should be calling for all politicians to publish their tax returns?

To give us an insight into the pros and cons of publically available information and the effects on society, Usman W. Chohan Doctoral Candidate, Policy Reform Economics, UNSW joins Mitch.