The Helsinki Administrative Court has decided that the Finnish tax administration must disclose the identities of more than 4,000 high-paid employees who have requested that their income and tax information be removed from the list provided to the media.
For years, the tax administration had published a list of Finnish citizens earning more than 100,000 euros a year, until 2019, when 231 people asked for their data to be removed from the list under the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
The tax administration agreed to all requests that year, and last year the office received more than 4,600 requests for information.
This led to several media outlets joining forces and asking the tax administration for information on who had asked for their name to be removed.
The tax administration opposed these requests and justified its decision on the grounds that the information had to be kept confidential, but many media outlets, including Yle, appealed the decision to the administrative court.
The court ruled that, according to administrative law, the tax office is not required to provide the media with a complete list of income and tax information of employees. However, it decided that the names of those who exercised their right to conceal their data should be disclosed to the media.
The court further held that the tax office must disclose a person’s taxable income upon express request.
If the current judgment is in force, it means in practice that the list given to the media by the tax administration also includes those who have requested that their name be removed from the list, according to the High Commissioner for Taxation. Noora Kontro.
The tax administration has not yet decided whether it intends to appeal the decision to the Supreme Administrative Court.
Source: The Nordic Page