
Norway, where no salaries are secret - tpatke
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-40669239
======
harry8
Why keep this stuff secret? Because _none_ of it is fair and we all know it.
None of it can be. "We needed person X in January and couldn't wait until
march so we promised them more money to come accross." So you should piss off
everyone else by rubbing it in their face that X was pretty lucky on timing?
Or give everyone a raise the company can't afford? Or force person Y to have a
horrible conversation with their spouse who cares more about money than Y does
because they now know X gets more? Or have Z's pyschotic parent hassling them
because they want a cut of money they didn't know was there until publication.
You can imagine hundreds of other situation like this that are horrible
consequences that you 100% know will happen to someone.

Privacy is quite unfashionable nowadays. The fashionable idea that nobody else
should get it because it doesn't suit you is pretty ugly. It used to be quite
an admirable thing to be wealthy and have nobody know you were.

~~~
neilwilson
It's down to what you think salaries are for. If market value is supposed to
equate to social value and ensure a fair distribution of the output of
society, then you need open prices or the market won't work properly.

I need to know what you are paid so I can balance what I am paid against what
I think you are worth.

Closed salaries only benefit the other side of the negotiating table - the
employers - who then divide and conquer.

Which is why they play upon the doubt and insecurity in people's minds that
they are actually worth what they have negotiated.

It's the basis of why unionisation works and why it ensured that workers got
their fair share of productivity increases. Right up to the point when
unionisation was defeated and 'individualists' got to play their game. Since
then the productivity gains have gone to the top of town.

Extreme individualism is always defeated by those who know how to share and
work as a team.

~~~
vosper
> Closed salaries only benefit the other side of the negotiating table - the
> employers - who then divide and conquer.

Closed salaries might also benefit some employees. I think most people will
agree that across any job title, or team, there are people who're favored in
some way - better at their job, fun to be around, great motivators or
mediators, whatever it is. It might be possible for these people to get better
pay for themselves because the company doesn't have to give a commensurate
increase to everyone.

~~~
onion2k
_It might be possible for these people to get better pay for themselves
because the company doesn 't have to give a commensurate increase to
everyone._

So long as the reason _why_ someone is paid more is also public then it's
fine. People could use that as motivation to improve - seeing someone else
rewarded for something is a _brilliant_ driving force to do it yourself as
well.

~~~
pizza234
_So long as the reason why someone is paid more is also public then it 's
fine._

You're assuming perfectly rational behavior, which is... not human.

I'm not arguing against open salaries (I am in such condition), but assuming
rational actors is not realistic.

In particular, an example justification along the lines of "X takes more
because is a better programmer than you are" is very dangerous, not only in
the obvious way.

------
audunw
Back when the lists were completely open and could be searched on multiple
different media sites without logging in, I would sometimes look up people out
of curiosity.

Since it was put behind a government 2-factor login page I've honestly never
bothered.

I think it's pretty cool that this information is open, but I'm not sure if it
has any significant impact. I'm sure it's a nice tool for investigative
journalism, but what else?

~~~
e12e
I think its fine that it was moved behind a secure login and rate limited -
because there's _other_ information that's useful for identity theft and/or
stalking (date of birth and municipality - along with a history of re-
locations - not at address level, but specific enough that it poses a great
de-anonymizing vector for a (working) population of ~3(?) millon. A simple
name+city lookup would normally be enough to look up date-of-birth).

But now they've added a "shame"-filter of alerting who you look up -- which
makes some sense, but IMNHO removes the democratizing effect a bit. Before,
you could look up the salary of the person(s) interviewing you for a job,
along with salaries for various people in the company (assuming a public
listing of employees, which is normal). You can still do that of course, but
I'm afraid too many will be "offended" by this way of using information that's
public _by law_ to reduce the information asymmetry. The flip side is that a
potential employer can also see what you've earned the past few years.

I don't think most people used it like this though - it's useful for checking
what public figures earn/pay in taxes - and it's useful to do a rough sanity
check to see if work place agreements on compensation are followed (there's no
minimum wage in Norway, but unions are still strong) - and also to do a rough
check for gender imbalance in salaries at a given workplace.

------
tudorconstantin
Am I the only one who thinks it's my own business how much I earn as long as I
don't do anything illegal? What's next, a database with all guys dick size?

~~~
pimmen
You've earned all that money, it's nothing to be ashamed of so I don't really
see how that's making you more uncomfortable than everyone being able to look
up your expensive sports car at the DMV.

However, if you're running for office, I would be very interested in knowing
how you made all that money (even if none of it was made illegally) since
you'll be regulating businesses and what not.

~~~
patrickaljord
> it's nothing to be ashamed

What? Am I reading this on HN? The place where people like talking how privacy
matter all day and how annoying the fallacy of "if you have nothing to hide
you shouldn't worry about the government/corporations spying on you" is? I'm
puzzled.

~~~
foo101
What makes you think salary is a matter of privacy? In a lot of countries,
many government jobs come with publicly disclosed salaries. Why do you think a
job in a private sector should maintain secrecy for salaries?

Privacy applies to private data. Whether salary should be considered private
data is the point of argument here. Nobody is arguing about doing away with
privacy altogether. So what is your point?

~~~
krona
_many government jobs come with publicly disclosed salaries._

Knowing what public servants and politicians earn passes the most basic of
public interest tests. What _I_ earn, however, doesn't.

~~~
foo101
Fair point. I chose a poor example there. A better example would be:
Engineering jobs (not the IT or software kind but licensed engineering jobs)
in many European and Asian companies have publicly disclosed salaries.

------
Roritharr
I think in Germany a large part why Salaries are secret is because most people
don't want to think about it. [https://www.quora.com/Why-is-everything-so-
cheap-in-Germany](https://www.quora.com/Why-is-everything-so-cheap-in-Germany)

~~~
jraedisch
I cannot find anything supporting your argument under that link. Maybe add
some quotes?

Also Norwegians probably do not have to look up their colleagues salaries, if
they do not want to.

I would definitely like to know at least the general distribution.

~~~
chha
Many unions in Norway in the private sector (if not most) generate statistics
based on information from their members regarding salary, education,
experience and so on, so for me as a developer/sysop there really is no need
to check what my colleagues are paid. I work at a place where everyone has a
different background, so I don't expect the same pay for everyone. But I
expect that I'm paid similar to others with the same responsibility, tasks,
background, etc within the industry and geographical area.

------
marenkay
This is one of the things I want to see in the rest of Europe too. Still hope
that we'll see a EU wide tax and commerce union leading into a unified system
that includes the best from every EU member.

Also liking the sentiment that people want to have some kind of confirmation
that everyone pays a similar level of taxes :-)

~~~
josmar
Would it not be more likely that we Scandinavians would have to use the
mainstream system? I'm not Norwegian, but my nation Sweden does this
similarly.

If we accept giving our internal revenue services to the EU, I very much doubt
that we will be able to keep this sort of thing, such as the principle of
things being public (sv: offentlighetsprincipen).

For reasons like this (giving up what is unique about our culture for the
mainstream continental one) I can't help but be sceptic of further involvement
with European political unity, and am anticipating that Brits of 10 years from
now will be satisfied with their decision to leave.

------
andy_ppp
Of course salaries shouldn't be secret - everything like this should be in the
open and you should be able to talk directly to your boss about contributions
to the company that you have made over and above those who are earning more
than you. This also helps when in most societies women are paid substantially
and illegally less than men for the same job.

This prudish idea of not wanting to talk about money is not a good enough one
to stop people from being able to value themselves against their peers. After
an initial period of concern everyone would eventually stop worrying about
this system as disparities were corrected and fairer wages were introduced.

Is there a reason not to have open salary information?

~~~
charlesdm
Sorry, don't agree. It is bad for negotiation and getting a favourable outcome
for yourself. Unless you actually want everyone in a society to make close to
the same amount of money (which is how they roll in Norway, and if you dare
make more, they'll basically just tax it away), which I don't think is great,
I'd much rather not have anything be public.

In fact, I would never want to live in a country like that.

The people that want to figure out how much others are making can figure it
out. From a negotiating position, you're much better off not having your
salary be public, than the other way around.

Also, you want to have some inequality in western society (not crazy amounts
-- basic needs of everyone should be met), because it motivates people to
achieve things. If there's no reasonable reward waiting for you at the end,
why even bother?

Norway has high income taxes, high capital gains taxes, wealth taxes, crazy
taxes on (luxury) cars, high VAT, high taxes on alcohol, etc. Where's the
reward? The warm fuzzy feeling you get from working hard? Hell, where's the
fun? I don't see how one could ever be an entrepreneur there. Even if you win,
you eventually lose (wealth tax), unless you move away.

~~~
Hasknewbie
>> It is bad for negotiation and getting a favourable outcome for yourself

Sooo, your main argument against this is not some privacy concern, but only
the perception that it would somehow help your salary negotiation. When
relying on a lack of data/information, the only one that gets increased
leverage is your employer, not you and your smart argument of "you just don't
need to tell the others, boss <wink>".

>> which is how they roll in Norway, and if you dare make more, they'll
basically just tax it away

Norway's tax rate is on par with other Nordic countries: high but nothing
exceptional, and you get plenty of benefits (basically you get what you paid
for). It's not stopping anybody from trying to make it. As a matter of fact
they have one of the highest rate of millionaires per inhabitant (close to
200k for 5M).

~~~
petre
You can share salary data with your peers if you wish to do so and you think
its in your best interest. Norway is largely a socialist society and they
accept being heavily taxed and publicly sharing salary data. Taxes are on par
with Denmark, Sweeden and maybe Finland. English/US culture is different and
more capitalist. It encourages individuals to do better for themselves, it
encourages competition, just like in nature.

They have the highest millionaire rate per inhabitant mainly because it
doesn't have many inhabitants and it's an oil rich country.

~~~
gattilorenz
Norway a socialist society.

Sometimes I feel that every place with even minimal welfare is bound to be
defined a socialist country, eventually. By that logic, Trump could be a
fascist, Renzi is a commie, and so on.

~~~
charlesdm
I think basic welfare and good free healthcare are basic human rights. But
tax-wise, Norway is about as bad as it gets. And I am obviously aware those
services need to be paid for, but a lot of it has to do with policy as well.

It's probably a decent tradeoff for the average Norwegian, but not for anyone
who wishes to (eventually) live off of investment and/or (semi) passive
income.

A lot of these taxes don't serve any purpose (and generate very little
revenue) and merely exist to stop or limit certain behaviors. Why are luxury
cars taxed a lot? They don't want people to drive a Porsche or an Aston
Martin, because some people would feel bad they can't afford those cars. Why
is alcohol taxed excessively? They don't want people to drink (too much). Why
is there a wealth tax? They don't want people to focus on getting rich. Etc

One simple example is a wealth tax: hard to verify whether people are
reporting their true net worth, hard to enforce (takes a lot of manpower to
check everything), and it brings in very little. In France, the wealth tax
barely covers the cost of enforcing it. That's a policy decision, i.e. we want
wealthy people to pay X% of extra tax. But it's not a sane decision.

~~~
marvin
As a Norwegian that aspires to eventually live off investments and passive
income, you do have some salient points. We could probably have a
significantly cheaper public sector; hiring for the public sector during the
last decade has been ridiculous. Counter-cyclical spending during times of
economic crisis should _not_ be performed by hiring people for permanent
positions with some of the strongest labor protections in the world; you'll
never get rid of the expense when the cycle turns back.

And don't get me started on the wealth tax; it's a good and probably necessary
idea in the long-term, but here it's both (1) too high; at 1% p.a. it's in
effect an extra 25% capital gains tax on top of the 29% which is taxed
directly, and (2) assets that "everyone" own (real estate) are only taxed at
25% of their market value. And debt is deducted at its full value! Buy a
million dollar home borrowing $250k, and you pay no wealth tax at all! So you
are allowed to be a real estate millionaire (and receive tax-free income on
rent from your primary residence), but not a stock fund millionaire.

To everyone's big surprise, real estate has appreciated much faster than other
assets (20% in Oslo last year), mostly evening out the post-tax advantage over
other assets.

The tax on investment income was recently reduced by three percentage points
to make the system more similar to other parts of the EEC, but a
multiplicative factor was introduced when calculating the "taxable value" for
stocks and funds, in effect _increasing_ the tax by two percentage points. I
never quite understood this move.

I am proud of our universal healthcare system and our welfare system -- in
effect it's a means-tested basic income system; no one starves or freezes --
but some tax policies feel really oppressive if you are trying to do something
ambitious.

~~~
charlesdm
Very nice example, and you can clearly see how market distorting the wealth
tax is. In a post below you wrote it triggers from $175k, but the value of a
property is only counted at 25%.

Purchasing property is essentially a tax avoidance mechanism to avoid the
wealth tax on cash, and in turn leads to a massive property bubble (probably
because the wealth tax cap is relatively low, and it hits a lot of people /
families).

Even if you don't really want to invest in property, it makes sense to do so,
because otherwise you'd just be paying wealth tax. Add to that that you can
probably lever it up easily (e.g. buy something with 20% down) and.. you get a
recipe for disaster at some point.

~~~
marvin
Yup, this sums it up nicely.

------
valar_m
>> "When you pay that much you have to know that everyone else is doing it,
and you have to know that the money goes to something reasonable," he says.

That's an interesting justification. It's like the Norwegian government wants
people to focus on making sure their neighbors are getting just as hosed as
they are instead of asking why they have to pay a 40% income tax.

Also, how does making everyone's salary public prove to taxpayers that their
money is going to something reasonable? That doesn't follow at all.

~~~
todd8
Does Norway also have a VAT? The top marginal rate on wages in California is
51.9% according to taxfoundation.org [1]

[1] [https://taxfoundation.org/high-income-taxpayers-could-
face-t...](https://taxfoundation.org/high-income-taxpayers-could-face-top-
marginal-tax-rate-over-50-percent-tax-season/)

~~~
Thlom
Yes, generally 25%, 15% for food stuff and 10% for cultural stuff.

Income is taxed with 25% up to 164K NOK (about 20K USD), maximum income tax is
39,25% for everyone earning more than about 950K NOK (about 119K USD). But
there's lots of deductions, so it's not too bad.

~~~
twoodfin
Do employers pay taxes on their labor as well?

~~~
Thlom
Yes, between 0 and 14% depeding on sector and where in the country you are.
This tax is going into the national insurance system called "folketrygden"
which is what finance most of the welfare state (the parts that pays out money
directly at at least).

------
jamesblonde
We have it in Sweden, too. I think you pay 50 kr (6 dollars) to look up
somebody's declared income - anonymously. There's a website for this:
www.kollainkomst.se (check incomes)

~~~
Eyght
If someone makes a request for your personal income and tax information in
Sweden, you'll always get a letter with the name of who requested your
information and a copy of the information that was supplied to them.

~~~
lb1lf
Presumably that is the raison d'etre for third-party companies offering
anonymous lookups (of what is essentially freely available information) for a
fee - whoever gets looked up receives notification that Leeches-R-Us, Inc.
looked up their details.

~~~
wingerlang
It says that the notice is only sent if the details were looked up by a
private person.

> Hotet resulterade i att branschen ingick ett avtal om att alltid skicka en
> kreditupplysningskopia om förfrågan beställts av en privatperson.

------
kisstheblade
We have the same thing in Finland. Only you can't access the info easily
online, you have to go to the tax office and use their terminal. But there you
can stalk your neighbors and friends anonymously.

Although newspapers publish lists of all people earning 150k/year and make a
big thing about the income of celebrities.

What I haven't understood is if tax records are public why aren't social
security payments etc. also public? So you could see who possibly "games" the
system in benefits?

I mean if the point of public tax data is to be "open" (=have everybody
snitching for the government).

~~~
pimmen
Because there might be social stigma around your medical condition, the fact
that you've ever been homeless, that you don't have custody over your children
and aren't receiving benefits or any number of things.

You earn your pay check, receiving one means that you're valued. Maybe not as
valued as someone else, but valued none the less. Benefits are received
because you need them, sometimes because you've been through hardships.

I have no problem with finding people who game the system, but I don't think
the public are the ones who should do that job.

~~~
lmm
There could easily be stigma about people who earn a lot of money too though,
particularly if they're not in a visible traditional job.

~~~
devdad
Well, that stigma sure sounds made up, where the other one is actually a real
thing.

~~~
lmm
You've never heard "I wonder where she gets her money"-type rumours?

------
m-i-l
Not sure about publishing income and assets, but publishing everyone's tax
bills could help stigmatise aggressive tax avoidance.

~~~
sweettea
Or incentivize. A website and forum would swiftly spring up publishing the
best-optimizing taxpayers/tax-avoiders, perhaps ranking by (normal tax rate
for the taxpayers' income) / (actual tax rate). People would compete to get
the top spot on the ranking, and 11.5 months of the year the forum would be
striving to find clever hacks to optimize.

~~~
zdkl
Well if we assume users are malicious that sounds ripe for a waterhole attack,
so please, go ahead! On the other hand if it becomes a standard place for tax-
related information to the general public it could be a good thing.

------
Pica_soO
This definitely blocks divide and conquer from working for employers.

------
wolco
A system like this encourages others to compare salaries and make judgements
about oneself related to how well one is doing compared to someone else. This
creates unhappyness because some feel they work harder and shouldn't be paid a
quarter less. The person getting the extra amount feels they are more
successful than there peers. All this does is distract you from the fact that
both of you are making only a few dollars above minimum wage. If you only look
at total pay in relation to your needs you will accept and be proud of your
wage.

I have seen people who love there job find out someone they feel does not
measure up to them make more money. This causes them to start hating the role
they once loved and in some cases they left for the same salary elsewhere.

~~~
cwingrav
Which hurts the original company such that they start making better salary
decisions. Transparency seems like a good thing here but it does create chaos
during periods of correction.

------
marcoperaza
The result of this and other policies in Scandinavia is that everyone makes
just about the same amount of money in a given line of work. Raises are based
almost exclusively on age and seniority, not on performance. What a depressing
and demotivating system.

------
anoplus
Transparency is enormous factor in the quality of life of all of us, and I
think real transparency is not about public information, but public knowledge.

------
zimablue
Another problem with this is that it stigmatises (and in the long term will
prevent) those with no wealth and a high income. I think it's madness but a
more fair trade would at least be to also publish everyone's existing wealth.
I make an ok income for the minute but am not going to inherit millions in
property like most people I know.

Wealth is a much bigger problem than income for society.

------
swombat
My company, GrantTree, has completely transparent salaries since day 1, almost
7 years ago. We are about 35 people now. #ama

~~~
ghthor
Have people left because of this? Was it a loss or a gain for the companies
culture if these people left?

~~~
swombat
One person left because he wanted to be paid significantly more than his work
was worth at the time (according to me, my cofounder, and the 5 people we put
in charge of a "pay team" to resolve this). He left, and it was better for him
- he took a year off, decided actually the problem was he wanted to be doing
charitable work and the money was a way to make up for that gap. He's now
working at a charity.

I see it as a loss, but I'm not sure it was an avoidable loss.

Nobody else left because of pay transparency. Before we got our feedback in
order, some people left because of feedback about their work, which only came
after a round of pay changes, which made it clear to them that they were not
doing work that was valued by the company. In those cases it would have been
much better for everyone if we had delivered that feedback much more quickly!
We're better at this now.

------
k__
This doesn't change much, I guess.

I mean, if you see marked rate for a JavaScript dev is too low, just don't
sell yourself as one. Be a "mobile app dev" or a "solution engineer" etc. pp.

In the end you do the same work and get paid more, because people stop judging
you by skill A bit skill B.

------
digi_owl
Not so much salaries, as declared gross incomes and wealth.

Salaries are dealt with via bi-yearly negotiations between unions and business
representatives.

Note btw that there is no minimum wage legislation in Norway. Instead the
agreement formed during negotiations apply not just to union members but to
the business sector as a whole.

~~~
Thlom
It's not true that tariffs apply to everyone. The only law that apply to
everyone is is Arbeidsmiljøloven. Some tariffs are generalised and is a de-
facto minimum wage in that sector.

------
err4nt
There seem to be a lot of commenters in favour of open salaries here - how
does this work for self-employed people? If I've been freelancing and working
my tail off do you also believe I ought to be publicly disclosing that, or is
it limited to employees of companies?

~~~
lordnacho
If you're self-employed, you still have a tax return. If you make a company to
hold things in, it has a tax return.

------
known
Possible due to social mobility
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Great_Gatsby_Curve.pn...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Great_Gatsby_Curve.png)

------
xiaoma
This is _amazing_ for small advertisers. Anyone's salary can be found online,
for free, and it's easy to target high earners with ads or even direct sales
teams.

It's not so great for the high earners, though...

------
beagle3
I think janteloven also plays a part here, although I am not sure which
part....

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante)

------
dmichulke
A question for all the people who use the word "fair":

Do you mean fair as paid

\- by productivity,

\- by necessity,

\- paid equally, or

\- something else?

------
sundvor
Ah Norway, home of the Teslas. I remember the tax lists were always public in
Norway, however before the Internet became commonplace actual physical effort
was required - you had to go to the city council to look through the books.

The change to publish the lists online was creepy. I'm glad I left before my
own numbers were made public (IIRC).

In Australia the difference between the rich and the poor feels a lot less
pronounced. It helps not to actually know your mates might earn 3x what you
do.

This is just this Norwegian expat's personal experience; YMMV.

(Edit: I see from other comments here that the information has been ID-locked.
That's a good thing, if but a bit late - after at least a decade fully open).

~~~
Broken_Hippo
Slightly off the main topic:

 _In Australia the difference between the rich and the poor feels a lot less
pronounced. It helps not to actually know your mates might earn 3x what you
do._

Oddly, this is basically what I think of Norway after moving from the US.

------
partycoder
Well, I assume this only considers base salary. But for some occupations
commissions, bonuses, etc. can be a significant part of their paycheck.

~~~
runarb
No, it is not your salary per say, but your taxable income that is available
for everyone to see. All income, including base salary, bonuses, and perks are
taxed the same and included in this number.

~~~
arpa
Just a tiny nitpick. It's per se, latin for "by itself", not per say. Just
like should have is not should of.

------
FlashGit
Funny how some people stopped searching once you could no longer do it
anonymously.

------
yread
So, where is the graph of distribution of incomes?

~~~
MattConfluence
The taxation-lookup site doesn't offer any aggregated data, however you can
find some statistics at the national statistics bureau's website:
[https://ssb.no/en/inntekt-og-forbruk](https://ssb.no/en/inntekt-og-forbruk)
(link to page in English)

------
cjbprime
Wow, surprised I'd never heard of this.

------
scottmcdot
Does anyone have a link to the search tool?

~~~
judofyr
This is the current search tool, but it requires a Norwegian national ID (SSN)
to log in: [http://www.skatteetaten.no/en/person/Tax-
settlement/Search-i...](http://www.skatteetaten.no/en/person/Tax-
settlement/Search-in-the-tax-lists/)

If you google "skattelister" (tax lists) you will find various other tools:

\- This one is based on the 2008 taxes and is therefore completely searchable
on name and gives you income/assets/taxes + municipality/age:
[http://www.biip.no/default.aspx?section=skatt](http://www.biip.no/default.aspx?section=skatt)

\- This one is based on the latest 2015 taxes:
[https://www.dn.no/skattelister/](https://www.dn.no/skattelister/). This means
that they've used the official tool to search for specific celebrities and
published it (together with some general distributions/stats).

------
sfRattan
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante)

...specifically, 'the penal code of Jante...'

