National Affairs: A Measure of Privacy

Monday, Jun. 29, 1953

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Since 1923, a Wisconsin law has permitted anyone to inspect any citizen's state tax return, including his income from investments, his contributions to charity, his deductions for support and medical services, etc. In Madison last week, Governor Walter Kohler signed a bill restoring some measure of privacy to state taxpayers. Hereafter, anyone willing to ante up a $1 fee may learn the total tax paid by any individual or corporation, but the taxpayer's actual return, and consequently his specific income and deductions, will no longer be open to inspection.*

^{* The appetite for minding other people's business is even
stronger in Sweden, where personal income taxes are made public and
where a private company publishes a widely read annual register giving
the incomes of all families with more than $3,000 a year.}