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Comment by Analemma_ | Hacker News Reader

I don't even think it needs to be hard to figure out. Fines could, and should, be set to something like "basis points [hundredths of one percent] of your gross income on last year's tax return", which the government already knows. A speeding ticket could then be set to e.g. 20 bp = [last year's gross income] * .002.

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I know, if you can't pay the fine don't do the crime, but realistically income is not a constant and is much too temporal to be useful here. A decent income year last year, and little income this year, means you might have no hope of paying the fine.

Why not a fraction of the current value of gross assets at the time of investigation? This a much better reflection of someone's financial standing, is a greater deterrent, ensures that the fine is actually payable, and deals with the issue of the rich not having much in the way of income.

It sounds very progressive for a society to admit high income spendthrifts are immune to self reflective remorse, but I feel like we should still try impose penalties to give them an opportunity for growth.

Fair enough. Then the fine shall be levied at the value of the car being driven when the offence occurred. Driving a $500 beater? Your fine is $500. Driving a $1,000,000 sports car? Your fine is $1,000,000.

While this theoretically allows the rich to drive said $500 car in order to minimize their liability in the event of a fine, it also means the rich have to drive a $500 car if that is what they are trying to optimize for, which is a decent social tradeoff.

That's a pretty interesting approach as it means you don't have to ask about how much money the person makes, which can vary.

Though it hurts poor people who prioritize their car over other essentials.

Yah - income is clearly the first way to do this, but you'd want to integrate assets at some point (many wealthy people do not have traditionally high incomes). That's the tricky part.

Mm. On paper, I am in poverty, earn less than €20,000 a year, and am up to my eyeballs in unsecured debt.

The reality is somewhat different.

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