The outcome of a challenge to a decision by tax authorities to allow more than 4,000 people to have their names withheld from its annual list of high income earners won't be know until early next year.
The Finnish Tax Administration has said that it will censor the names of people who would otherwise appear on the list, but requested anonymity.
The individuals took advantage of EU data protection regulations and expanded national data privacy laws that came into force at the beginning of 2019 that allow people to request that their names and income information be dropped from public lists.
The tax authority cited data protection regulations as the rationale for allowing individuals to conceal their income information. Ordinarily, regular folk can withhold their name from the listing on the basis of security or health concerns.
Yle and other media outlets have challenged the data privacy argument. Last year Yle appealed that policy in administrative court and a ruling could come by January 2021.
Most favour transparency
In practice, the tax authority does not have the resources for a thorough review of thousands of requests by people wishing to have their names removed from income rankings. Out of 4,600 such applications just 67 were rejected.
Finland publishes an annual list of people who earn more than 100,000 in annual earned income. After eliminating the persons who requested anonymity, tax authorities will release the names, income and tax contributions of some 70,000 people on Tuesday, 3 November.
Last year the Tax Administration published the earnings and tax data of 70,300 people who had earned 100,000 euros or more in 2018. The annual exercise provides a picture of incomes, income earners and the taxes they pay.
Yle has generally published the names and income information of the top 1,000 members of that group and will do so once more this year. Last year the lowest income earned by the top 1,000 was around 900,000 euros, so the high flyers belong to a veritable millionaire’s club.
According to a fresh Yle survey, 47 percent of respondents said they supported continuing to publish the income data of big earners, compared to 38 percent who said people should be able to withhold their names from the list. Some 16 percent did not take a position on the matter.
