Seeing what every Liv, Knut, and Terje earns

OSLO, Norway - It's the moment nosy Norwegian neighbors have been waiting for - the release of official records showing the annual income and overall wealth of nearly every taxpayer in the Scandinavian country.

In a move unthinkable elsewhere, tax authorities in Norway have issued the skatteliste - tax list - for 2008 to the media under a law designed to uphold the nation's tradition of transparency.

It's Norwegians' way of keeping up with the Johansens - from fishermen on the western fjords and Sami reindeer herders in the north to members of the committee that awarded President Obama the Nobel Peace Prize.

To non-Scandinavians, it would seem to be a gross violation of privacy.

The tax list stirs a media frenzy, with splashy headlines revealing the wealthiest man, woman, and celebrity couple in the oil-rich country of 4.8 million people.

The data show that former cross-country skiing great Bjoern Daehlie, who has eight Olympic gold medals, also has plenty of cash - 29.3 million kroner, or $5.4 million.

Actress and director Liv Ullmann, for instance, earned $17,300 in Norway, and has a wealth of $2.5 million. Income earned or kept abroad, or otherwise in some sort of tax shelter, is not included.

Many media outlets use the tax records to produce searchable online databases. In the database of national broadcaster NRK, you can type a subject's name and within moments get information on what that person made last year, what was paid in taxes, and total wealth. It also compares those figures with Norway's national averages for men and women and for that person's city of residence.

Defenders of the system say it enhances transparency, deemed essential for an open democracy.

"Isn't this how a social democracy ought to work, with openness, transparency, and social equality as ideals?" columnist Jan Omdahl wrote in the tabloid Dagbladet. But he acknowledged many treat the list like "tax porno" - furtively checking the income of neighbors or coworkers.

Critics say the list is a threat to society. "What each Norwegian earns and what you have in wealth is a private matter between the taxpayer and the government," said Jon Stordrange, director of the Norwegian Taxpayers Association.

Besides giving criminals a useful tool to find prime targets, he said, the list generates playground taunts of my-dad-is-richer-than-your-dad.

"The children of people with low wages are being teased about it in the schools," Stordrange said. "People with low salaries are being met with comments at the grocery store, 'How can you live on these low wages?' "

The information had been available to media until 2004, when a more conservative government banned the publication of tax records. Three years later, a new, more liberal government reversed the legislation and also made it possible for media to obtain tax information digitally and disseminate it online.

Since the latest tax list was released Wednesday, national media have scrambled to analyze it. The newspaper Aftenposten's Web site ranked common Norwegian first names by wealth under the headline "How rich is your name?" It found that men named Terje tended to do very well, while among women, Marit was a winner.