As it does every year, the Finnish Tax Administration released income and tax data of the previous year's top earners to the media on Tuesday.
The list includes details on individuals who earn at least 100,000 euros annually. For decades now, the media has meticulously published the information in what has become known as a kind of national day of envy.
But this year the list was incomplete, as more than 4,000 taxpayers requested--and were granted--that their earnings information not be published, due to a change in rules.
As a result, a total of 20 media houses--including the country's biggest daily Helsingin Sanomat--have joined forces in protesting those omissions.
In its response, Helsingin Sanomat shut down access to its publicly-accessible tax information portal for a month.
The daily's editor-in-chief, Kaius Niemi, told news agency STT that the move was a protest against the authority's decision to allow the data to be concealed.
"It leads to a situation where [overall] tax information becomes inaccurate," Niemi said.
However, the fact that people managed to be removed from the list, does not mean their details are actually kept secret. That's because in Finland, the tax and income data of all taxpayers is public record and can be accessed upon request.
Media protest over transparency
Joining Helsingin Sanomat in the protest were newspapers Aamulehti, Turun Sanomat, Satakunnan Kansa, Kaleva, Lapin Kansa as well as other regional and local news outlets.
Niemi said that the papers still plan to publish tax and income-related stories but will not post exhaustive lists.
The publications will re-open their tax information portals after November.
According to Niemi the media houses' portals have traditionally been especially popular among readers when they are first published but the data is also accessed throughout the year.
Niemi said that if high earners are able to conceal their incomes as they have increasingly done, it will result in the end of transparency surrounding income levels and taxation.
"Because it's obvious that increasing numbers of people will request to be removed from being included on the list, and the list won't mean much [anymore]," he explained, saying that many important issues in Finnish society, such as pay equity and tax evasion, would be left in the dark if that transparency disappears.
"The transparency of tax data is not for the media. It is meant for citizens to help them draw conclusions using available information, on a fact-based basis," he said.
Yle, STT, Helsingin Sanomat and other media outlets have challenged the data privacy argument.
Last year Yle appealed that policy in administrative court and a ruling could come by January 2021.