Pay Up Your Taxes Or We'll Embarrass You Online

from the effective dept

The State of Rhode Island has an interesting project going to try to convince delinquent tax payers to pay up. They sent out letters to many of the offenders telling them that if they weren't paid up by the end of this month that their names will be published online as delinquent tax payers. It apparently worked well. They received about five times as many payments as they would over the same period in any other year. I wonder, though, if there are any privacy implications of doing things this way?
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  • identicon
    Chris, 5 Nov 2002 @ 4:57am

    No Subject Given

    It seems like they are being "convicted" without a fair hearing. Tax deliquency is a crime, and thus before the state starts publishing lists of violators due process must run its course. After all, this is government we are talking about. Its a fair bet that 25% of the alledged violators are current on taxes, with some paperwork screwup causing the state to list them as deliquent.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    LordSlakyr, 5 Nov 2002 @ 1:05pm

    What's next? Stocks in public square?

    Didn't the Puritans try this public humiliation thing - didn't seem to work too well.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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