In 2008, Italy’s deputy finance minister published online the declared incomes and corresponding taxes paid by everyone in the country. Vincenzo Visco had led the government’s campaign against tax evasion and believed that Italy’s debt had reached disastrous levels. He said the publication of tax data was “an exercise of transparency, of democracy.” That exercise, however, quickly ended as Italy’s data protection agency ordered the information taken down after a day, saying that its publication violated privacy.

Taxes most everywhere are a controversial issue – just ask Gerard Depardieu, who fled the high taxes of his native France and accepted the offer of Russian citizenship last week. Around the world, many governments are proposing painful solutions to the problem of public debt and imposing heavier tax burdens on citizens. As government services are cut because public coffers are bare, public attention is shifting to the taxes paid – or not…