Sounds like how the repeater tax works in the NBA; each year you are over the salary cap,you have to pay a penalty per dollar over, and you pay a higher percentage each time you are over. Once you get under the cap, it resets.

The money gets split amongst the non-tax paying teams, with the idea of balancing competition between wealthier teams and poorer teams.

http://www.cbafaq.com/salarycap.htm#Q18

It makes sense because you didn't pay federal taxes on that amount last year. Ideally your withholding should have been perfect last year and your refund would have been $0, and then you would have paid the federal tax amount on it last year.

Relatedly, I got a ~$5k state refund last year and I'm not paying additional federal tax on it this year because the SALT deductions are now gone under Trump's tax changes, so my state tax burden doesn't affect my federal tax burden anymore.

Well I would counter argue that if previous lower fines failed to influence anyone then a larger fine is not really excessive. I think the problem is that everyone always thinks it will be the other guy first and that why should they act before anyone else. Well the message is pretty clear now hurry up before the crap hits the fan we are serious and coming for you.

The aim of laws is compliance. If the low and medium fines of previous years have failed to achieve compliance, and fines eventually escalate to high, I'd argue it's far from excessive. If it were excessive a much lower amount would have achieved general compliance with that particular law, would it not?

It is exceedingly rare for a fine to be struck down as a violation of the Eighth Amendment. The standard as articulated by Waters-Pierce Oil Co. v. Texas, 212 U.S. 86 (1909) is that the fine must be "so grossly excessive as to amount to a deprivation of property without due process of law."

That case was about a $5000 a day antitrust fine, which had accumulated to $1.6 million, but had not forced compliance with the law. The Supremes concluded that the fine was not excessive, because the business was doing well enough not to comply despite the fines.

The fine would have to be grossly in excess of what it would take to force compliance by a reasonable business. A fine that amounts to a doubling of the property tax would almost certainly not be a violation of the Eighth amendment.

And you usually don’t self-assess fines, but you do self-assess taxes.

Leave the fines for when taxes aren’t self-assessed.

Cynically, one could claim the same about taxes.

Can be either, depends on society.

Bad if the officials are corrupt and will use that power to extort money for personal profits.

Good if the officials are democratically elect, supported by the public, do what people want them to, and the public is mostly good people.

Have no idea about Barcelona's officials nor society.

That's fair but I don't think, at least with empty buildings, the revenues would be anywhere close to being able to replace a significant portion of income taxes. The scales are vastly different. But I should apologize for an overly snarky initial comment.

We call it the opioid tax and it works pretty effectively at eliminating the unemployed.

Lazy athletes performing 2-3 hours a night for 75 days a year and retiring at 35.