In Norway, income and wealth are public record

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 that would be unthinkable elsewhere, tax authorities in Norway have issued the skatteliste, or tax list, for 2008 to the media under a law designed to uphold the country'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 up a media frenzy, with splashy headlines revealing oil-rich Norway's wealthiest man, woman and celebrity couple.

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

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

Pioneering women's long-distance runner Grete Waitz, a nine-time New York City Marathon champion, earned $13,500 in Norway, and has $90,000.

Many media outlets use the tax records to produce their own searchable online databases. In the database of national broadcaster NRK, you can type a subject's name, hit search 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 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. Critics say the list is actually 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 providing criminals with 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. 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.

Norway's 2007 law emphasized that "first and foremost, it's the press that can contribute to a critical debate" on wealth and the elaborate tax scheme that, along with the country's oil wealth, keeps Norway's extensive - and expensive - welfare system afloat.

The country of 4.8 million people had the third-highest income tax among industrialized countries in 2007, behind Denmark and New Zealand, according to the latest statistics from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.