Italy Reveals Everyone's Income... On Purpose

from the whoops dept

Tue, May 6th 2008 2:56pm — Mike Masnick

Last week I saw the headlines mentioning that Italy had revealed taxpayer info, and naively assumed that it was yet another story of yet another accidental data leak by a government agency. After all, we've seen so many. However, thanks to reader Luca Mirabelli for pushing me to take a second look at the story. It turns out that rather than an accidental release, it was very much on purpose. Vincenzo Visco, a deputy economy minister, decided to publish the details of everyone's tax returns on a publicly available website, including details such as what they earned, taxes paid and date of birth. He claimed that he did this as a "simple matter of transparency and democracy." The data was quickly pulled down due to (reasonable) fears that the release violated Italian privacy laws. According to Luca, Visco also claimed: "In the USA, tax filings are already public, check any American TV-movie and you'll see" though I can't find that statement in any English translation.

While many people do seem angry at Visco, he is correct on one point: he was actually following the law. There's an Italian law from 1973, requiring that tax documents be available to the public. It's just that, historically, that has meant having to trek to the tax office to get access to the documents. We've seen similar complaints about other "public" info that is now much more widely available, such as court documents. It seems the real problem here is that law -- which makes everyone's tax returns public. Though, Visco certainly should have realized what a questionable move this would be, and focused on amending the law, rather than going ahead with just making everyone's tax returns available online.

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Filed Under: incomes, italy, privacy, tax

12 Comments

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Max, 6 May 2008 @ 3:46pm

...and the ones who were not published?
It's a good news, and I agree with Visco. Now the authority for the privacy blocked the diffusion of tax data and only some cities are available on emule on the web. The absurdity of the situation is that some data is available and others are not: no more equity of treatment...
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Dave Barnes, 6 May 2008 @ 6:35pm

Get over it
Scott McNealy said: "you have no privacy, forget it".
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Somewhat shocked, 6 May 2008 @ 7:28pm

In the US
it is illegal to make public anyone's tax information. In fact the fines for doing so can easily rack up, such as one case where an IRS agent called all the patients of a Dr. who was being investigated to get additional information on the Dr's income sources. The Dr. was eventually awarded several million dollars.
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Shohat, 7 May 2008 @ 2:12am

More Infromation...
Actually, there are several European countries that publish ALL financial data of every single citizen, salaries, bank balance and debt. Everything is published.
This won't fly in the US because everyone are afraid of everything, but generally, it's not a bad thing.
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Sean (Palermo), 7 May 2008 @ 3:23am

And now...
It was supposed to be part of the fight against tax-evasion. Now the authorities are threatening anyone who accesses this data online with criminal charges - let's say that again - after having published the info, they are now saying that anyone who gets it via peer2peer is breaking the law.
Most Italians I know are shocked but secretly delighted that all this was published - it's the big names that are screaming the loudest (and thus, clearly, have the most to hide!).
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Luca, 7 May 2008 @ 3:37am

Visco's reference to American TV series
Too bad that the juiciest part of the story, i.e. Visco's reference to American TV series, was left out from most of the English language reports. We may excuse foreign journalists for thinking it was just a joke :-)
Here it is... reported by the English section of Corriere della Sera.
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Ken, 7 May 2008 @ 6:07am

Not a bad thing?
@Shothat

How is it "not a bad thing" that "there are several European countries that publish ALL financial data of every single citizen, salaries, bank balance and debt"? I'd say thats a horrible thing; not because I am afraid but because it is nobody's business but my own how much I make and what the balance is on my account.

As to preventing tax evaders, I commend the tax-evaders. If somebody comes to steal from my house, I will do whatever I can to stop them. And what are taxes other than government sanctioned and mandated theft?
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- Sean, 7 May 2008 @ 7:16am
  
  Re: Not a bad thing?
  "And what are taxes other than government sanctioned and mandated theft?"
  
  And what is the government, except elected representation of the people? If you don't like it, vote for someone else.
  Of course everyone wants smaller, cheaper, government and thereby less taxes - except when sh*t happens and then everyone's screaming "where's the government?"
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  - Nasch, 7 May 2008 @ 9:18pm
    
    Re: Re: Not a bad thing?
    Right on. The cry of the American Revolution was "no taxation without representation", not "no taxation".
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Self Assessment, 9 Jan 2009 @ 8:18am

Self Assessment Tax Returns
Good post! way to go!
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Self assessment, 14 Jan 2009 @ 8:45am

Self assessment tax returns
Italian privacy laws make no sense! that's one good reason not to live in Italy.
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sawchux, 4 Dec 2012 @ 12:47pm

Boost in reported income as a result?
A couple yeara ago I heard the Italian head of major consultancy give a keynote at an e-Government conference plenary discuss this particular case, noting that the leakage had the effect of prompting Italians to snitch on each other, resulting in billions of new reported tax revenues to the Italian government.

I would *love* to know just how much of a revenue boost this intentional privacy violation created!
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