Income based traffic fines

[afransen]

Seriously, can anybody imagine a C$180 000 (give or take) fine for going 75 kph in a 50 kph zone?

About as readily as I can imagine making 12.5 million euros a year.

Personally, I think it is fair, and not an altogether bad idea. The punishment is equal in terms of the effect the fine has on your net annual income, the equivalent of 14 days pay.

 

[afransen]

Ouch, that is a huge bureaucracy. What a waste of time.

BTW, I know people who make mid-6-digit $ income, yet have true CRA-approved net incomes of 5-digit $. Why? Because they just funnel everything through their corporations, and yes that's absolutely legal.

Oh and Steve Jobs makes $1 in salary a year. He has a huge expense account however (which has covered things such as jet fuel, for example) that is not considered in his net income.

These examples are just a few simple examples as to why such a system is completely ludicrous, esp. in North America.

The existence of loopholes is not a good argument against. It calls for the loopholes to be closed.

 

[PB1]

14 days pay for doing 75 in a 50 seems a bit harsh to me. Though if I was a millionaire I wouldn't lose any sleep over 14 days pay, but as I'm not, losing half my months pay would really hurt.

 

[Eug]

The existence of loopholes is not a good argument against. It calls for the loopholes to be closed.

Sorry, but legal corporate financial structure that is fully supported by the CRA is not a "loophole". Hell, if I had to deal with such stupidities like this, I'd incorporate in a heartbeat to avoid it. The ONLY reason to support something as ludicrous as this is to generate more tax revenue. We've seen it from time to time though from Toronto City Council unfortunately.

And like I said in the past, the response to governmental budgetary shortfalls should include cutting costs, not just coming with creative ways to tax everyone even more.

About as readily as I can imagine making 12.5 million euros a year.

Personally, I think it is fair, and not an altogether bad idea. The punishment is equal in terms of the effect the fine has on your net annual income, the equivalent of 14 days pay.

Somehow I'm not surprised. Just because you don't have the desire or will to make more than you do now, you essentially want to unfairly punish those who do.

 

[Woodbridge_Heights]

Isn't this just a form of economic discrimination? You can afford to pay more so you pay more for the same crime. This is not like a tax situation where your taxes are "intended" to re balance the social system in a way. Fees and punishments are meant to be deterrents to the crime, the contribution to government coffers is seen as secondary. Let's extrapolate a bit and ask what the punishment would be for murder vis a vis a wealthy vs poor person.

N.B. I do realize that a deterrent has to "hurt" enough that it stops the behaviour.

 

[afransen]

Why not get rid of fines and replace it with jail time, license suspensions, or public flogging?

"Sorry, but legal corporate financial structure that is fully supported by the CRA is not a "loophole". "

All loopholes are legal, otherwise they wouldn't be loopholes, they'd be crime.

"And like I said in the past, the response to governmental budgetary shortfalls should include cutting costs, not just coming with creative ways to tax everyone even more."

I don't think this should be intended as a revenue generation tool. Not many people make enough money that such a scheme would raise significant revenues. The point of this is to make fines non-trivial. A $100 fine is trivial for someone making tens of millions per year. If fines are trivial, they lose their power to encourage people to obey the laws of the land. If fines are ineffective, the law should be repealed or the penalties replaced with those of a different nature, like those I listed above. This is why we have a demerit point system in Ontario, so that traffic laws aren't only for the poor to obey.

"Just because you don't have the desire or will to make more than you do now, you essentially want to unfairly punish those who do."

Don't pretend to know me or my motivations. For instance, supporting universal education or social assistance for the less well-off doesn't mean I'm too poor to afford school for my children or a welfare bum. It means I'm not a heartless asshole.

 

[afransen]

Isn't this just a form of economic discrimination? You can afford to pay more so you pay more for the same crime. This is not like a tax situation where your taxes are "intended" to re balance the social system in a way. Fees and punishments are meant to be deterrents to the crime, the contribution to government coffers is seen as secondary. Let's extrapolate a bit and ask what the punishment would be for murder vis a vis a wealthy vs poor person.

N.B. I do realize that a deterrent has to "hurt" enough that it stops the behaviour.

I think both the wealthy and the poor value their freedom more or less equally, so I don't think income would be a significant factor for crimes that normally result in incarceration.

 

[Eug]

All loopholes are legal, otherwise they wouldn't be loopholes, they'd be crime.

Yes and no. There are loopholes that have violated the intent of the CRA and they are closed because they should be illegal.

The fundamentals of Canadian corporate financial structure are not among them.

I don't think this should be intended as a revenue generation tool. Not many people make enough money that such a scheme would raise significant revenues.

Speeding tickets are already a revenue generation tool.

The point of this is to make fines non-trivial. A $100 fine is trivial for someone making tens of millions per year. If fines are trivial, they lose their power to encourage people to obey the laws of the land. If fines are ineffective, the law should be repealed or the penalties replaced with those of a different nature, like those I listed above. This is why we have a demerit point system in Ontario, so that traffic laws aren't only for the poor to obey.

Bingo. We ALREADY have the demerit system. Hell, I'd even support making it more severe. And yes, it already applies equally to the rich and poor, without resorting to idiotic unfair practices like charging $100000 for a speeding ticket.

If you want to repeal the laws requiring fines then that might be justification for making the demerit system harsher. However, as I mentioned, speeding tickets are already a revenue generation tool.

"Just because you don't have the desire or will to make more than you do now, you essentially want to unfairly punish those who do."

Don't pretend to know me or my motivations. For instance, supporting universal education or social assistance for the less well-off doesn't mean I'm too poor to afford school for my children or a welfare bum. It means I'm not a heartless asshole.

Perhaps not, but you've already stated you're willing to charge someone an obscenely high amount of money for a speeding ticket as you can't imagine ever making as much money as them. Anyways, you're trying the deflect the argument now, but it's interesting you mention that. Ironically, I'm sure the rich would love to pay a flat percentage-based tax to support universal education and social assistance. As it stands now though, many pay more than their fair share, through higher tax brackets. It's pretty hard though to see how this argument is any way equivalent to asking a rich person pay $100000 for speeding ticket. That's more money than the cost of the cars most rich people drive.

 

[afransen]

Speeding tickets are already a revenue generation tool.

That is laughable. The current system we have for catching speeders, then prosecuting them, is fantastically expensive. Even if the fine revenue outweighed these costs, it could only be by a pittance.

Perhaps not, but you've already stated you're willing to charge someone an obscenely high amount of money for a speeding ticket as you can't imagine ever making as much money as them. Anyways, you're trying the deflect the argument now, but it's interesting you mention that. Ironically, I'm sure the rich would love to pay a flat percentage-based tax to support universal education and social assistance. As it stands now though, many pay more than their fair share, through higher tax brackets. It's pretty hard though to see how this argument is any way equivalent to asking a rich person pay $100000 for speeding ticket. That's more money than the cost of the cars most rich people drive.

Fair share? Bah. The rich enjoy the lifestyle associated with their wealth as a result of the stable society they find themselves in. I find it rather difficult to shed any tears for the tax burden of someone who has more money than he knows what to do with.

That $100,000 speeding ticket is less burdensome to that guy earning $12 million per year than a $150 ticket to someone earning $15,000 per year. He won't be skipping any meals to recover from that. Of course, if he would like to avoid such fines, he could always just, you know, not speed.

 

[Brandon716]

Not an entirely bad idea, if it wasn't a way for the police or other authority to make immense money. Any time you introduce money making into the process of implementing the law under the guise of safety its not healthy.

So while it sounds good on the surface, its not good underneath. A program of this type would introduce new types of abuse into the legal system of exploiting the right to give a ticket as primarily a revenue generation system. At its core, its supposed to be about safety, not money generation.

 

[rbt]

So what happens if you are being chauffered and your chauffer gets busted? At the rates these guys charge, the best thing to do for the rich is to get a chauffer, give him lots of benefits and services but pay him dirt wages.

Benefits are/can be considered a part of a persons taxable income.

 

[Platform 27]

You could very easily slap an income-contingent element across the board by making everyone declare all speeding fines (plus potentially other fines from public authorities, like parking tickets and so on) in a box on their annual income-tax return. It would serve as a sort of inverse tax-deductable line, and allow the income tax system to vaccuum up an additional and proportional hit from the wealthier among us.

 

[Ervin]

I think a lot of people simply failed to read the article.

I think it's a pretty decent system as people of all income levels get equally treated. Having the wealthy simply walk over the laws we have in place isn't exactly fun.

 

[nfitz]

Seems reasonable. Make the fine a simple percentage of Gross ... or even better Net income off the previous year's tax return. Perhaps 0.5%, so for someone who has an average $40,000 income, it's still about $200 or so; but for those earning $200,000 it becomes a $1,000 fine.

 

[LAz]

I would support this. Lets tax the bloody rich. If japan can cap their income at 300,000... then we could do more.

I mean wtf, they want to pay as little taxes as possible, and they want to move our jobs abroad... they want to fund harper to brainwash the people that tax is bad?? Gawd, make the madness stop.





Another article, in case it has not been submitted here already...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100110/ap_on_re_eu/eu_switzerland_huge_speeding_fine