Finland National Jealousy Day News Journal 17

Happy ‘National Jealousy Day’! Finland Bares Its Citizens’ Taxes

On November 1st Finland celebrated their National Jealousy day. This is a day when all tax income information for all Finnish citizens are released to the public. This allows individuals to look up the information of their neighbors, co-workers and even their parents. It is such a special holiday for the people of Finland that the morning of, there is a line waiting outside the tax administration buildings to get a look at the tex information. This holiday is a way to comply with the government's transparency laws and has become a tradition in the country. Finish citizens find that this transparency has helpt to reduce pay discrepancies that occur between workers of different race or sex. The people of Finland also feel that with the tax income information being public it puts more of a reason, to be honest when it comes to filing tax information. When it is discovered that a company executive has been using a loophole, citizens will publicly shame the person in order to discourage them from doing it again. This centers around the Finnish idea of honesty and making an equal contribution to society. This is a very culturally Finish idea and so this is why this holiday is able to work so well. Other countries like the US or Germany would not be able to have the same holiday because of how their cultures put an emphasis on income and pay.

This article relates greatly to the topic of a foreign countries culture because of how well it shows one of Finlands holidays and it shows why they have it. It goes into to talk about how their culture centers around following the rules and making positive contributions to society. Then it ends with how this holiday is unique to Finland and could not work in other countries. This comparison works to express how unique Finland is and how their holidays represent their culture further.

Citation
Barry, Ellen. "Happy ‘National Jealousy Day’! Finland Bares Its Citizens’ Taxes" The New York                     Times, 12 Nov. 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/01/world/europe/finland-national-                 jealousy-day.html

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