Thursday, Oct. 22, 2009

Norwegians bare it all

By Ken Robertson, Herald Executive Editor

So you think the government releases too much private information and the nosy news media publishes it?

Then be glad you don’t live in Norway.

Tax authorities there annually issue a “tax list” of how much money nearly every taxpayer made, how much each paid in taxes and how much each is worth.

It’s all part of the nation’s tradition of governmental transparency. And it offers everyone the chance to see whether the rich or a high-living neighbor is paying a fair share of Norway’s high taxes, which in 2007 were the third-highest among industrialized countries, according to an Associated Press report.

The practice is not especially popular, according to a survey the AP cited, with only 32 percent of residents favoring publication and 46 percent opposing it.

And from 2004 to 2007, the publication was banned, but then reinstated.

The Norwegians are not alone in this custom. Swedish citizens can order a government list of the earnings of middle- and upper-income residents.

A University of Washington professor, Christine Ingebritsen — who’s clearly got some Scandinavian ancestors with a name like that — said the tax list is a distinctly Scandinavian custom.

“This is how you make sure that you’re being legitimate in the eyes of the community — you show how the wealth of a CEO isn’t off the charts,” she told the AP.

Perhaps it works that way.

Norway’s wealthiest man is Johan Hendrik Andresen, at $2 billion, made mostly in tobacco. And its wealthiest woman is Tone Bjoerseth-Andersen, worth $107 million, made mostly by investing in stocks.

Liv Ullmann, perhaps Norway’s best-known actor, is worth a paltry $2.5 million and earned only $17,300 in Norway in 2008.

Hardly enough to impress Hollywood’s glitterati.

Nor is Johan Andresen high among the ranks of the billionaires. If he’s still worth $2 billion, he would go into a tie for 334th among a batch of also-rans, according to Forbes Magazine’s 2009 list of the world’s wealthiest people.

Still at the top is Bill Gates, who’s down to a recession-depleted $40 billion, Forbes estimates, just ahead of Warren Buffett, at $37 billion.

The first woman to show up on the Forbes list is Alice Walton — one of the Waltons of Wal-Mart fame — at No. 12 and worth $17.6 billion.

w Ken Robertson: 582-1520; krobertson@tricityherald.com

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