4 ms·

Try fining in N% of annual salary, Finland style, and see how long it takes for that tune to change.

by sundvor 8y ago

vowelless 8y ago
What about Mark Zuckerberg who has an annual salary of $1.00?
- Terr_ 8y ago
  They misspoke, Finland fines a percentage of income, which would include money from selling Facebook stock to pay for rent, food, yachts, etc. IANATaxLawyer, but I imagine gaming the system would require you to take out non-taxable loans using that company stock as collateral, and hope that your lawlessness is caught during the living-on-a-loan years rather than the liquidate-and-repay years.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - ThrustVectoring 8y ago
    Or liquidate a portion of your holdings and realize your gains in a non-penalty year. Either works.
    - Retric 8y ago
      That's harder to predict especially if fines are based on last years income. Really though a ~0.1% speeding ticket fine is not going to be an issue even if the press is impressed by a very large number fine.
      - xmodem 8y ago
        I’m not Finnish or a lawyer but I think their courts would see right through that sort of bullsbit
- jakobegger 8y ago
  Make it a percentage of taxable income or something like that. Lots of people have non-salary income.
  - loeg 8y ago
    Or a percent of wealth. Although that isn't really effective punishment for people who blow all their income and don't save anyway.
    - briandear 8y ago
      So should jail sentences be done the same way? If I am in jail 10 days, I lose a hell of a lot more money than some bum spending the same 10 days. So the cost of jail is much greater to me on a per day basis. This “based on wealth” concept is fine, assuming that also applies to jail sentences. We can’t expect an egalitarian scheme for fines if we neglect the same consideration for jail. Assuming our goal is inflicting pain proportionally. But people wouldn’t like a rich CEO spending a day in jail and a cab driver spending 25 years in jail for the same crime — even though the relative financial costs would be similar in terms of opportunity cost. Should a CEO pay $100,000 for a drivers license? This leads down a very slippery slope. Is there really an epidemic of rich people committing crimes at a higher rate than the non-rich? It doesn’t seem like criminality rates are higher among the rich, thus the premise that rich people should have a larger deterrent doesn’t seem to have much support in terms of evidence.
      - drodgers 8y ago
        No. Scaling jail sentences based on income would mean that the monetary size of the punishment was (roughly) constant between a rich and poor offender; just like if they were charged the same number of dollars as a fine. However, just as with fines, it would mean that the subjective effect of the punishment is much greater for the poorer person. If the goal is deterrence, then we need care about how subjectively costly the punishment will be to each person. Having a high income doesn't make your time subjectively more valuable, but it does mean that you can trade it for more money. A rich and a poor person would likely value a day of their own time quite similarly, but they would each value $100 quite differently.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

Try fining in N% of annual salary, Finland style, and see how long it takes for that tune to change.

vowelless 8y ago

What about Mark Zuckerberg who has an annual salary of $1.00?

Terr_ 8y ago
They misspoke, Finland fines a percentage of income, which would include money from selling Facebook stock to pay for rent, food, yachts, etc. IANATaxLawyer, but I imagine gaming the system would require you to take out non-taxable loans using that company stock as collateral, and hope that your lawlessness is caught during the living-on-a-loan years rather than the liquidate-and-repay years.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- ThrustVectoring 8y ago
  Or liquidate a portion of your holdings and realize your gains in a non-penalty year. Either works.
  - Retric 8y ago
    That's harder to predict especially if fines are based on last years income. Really though a ~0.1% speeding ticket fine is not going to be an issue even if the press is impressed by a very large number fine.
    - xmodem 8y ago
      I’m not Finnish or a lawyer but I think their courts would see right through that sort of bullsbit
jakobegger 8y ago
Make it a percentage of taxable income or something like that. Lots of people have non-salary income.
- loeg 8y ago
  Or a percent of wealth. Although that isn't really effective punishment for people who blow all their income and don't save anyway.
  - briandear 8y ago
    So should jail sentences be done the same way? If I am in jail 10 days, I lose a hell of a lot more money than some bum spending the same 10 days. So the cost of jail is much greater to me on a per day basis. This “based on wealth” concept is fine, assuming that also applies to jail sentences. We can’t expect an egalitarian scheme for fines if we neglect the same consideration for jail. Assuming our goal is inflicting pain proportionally. But people wouldn’t like a rich CEO spending a day in jail and a cab driver spending 25 years in jail for the same crime — even though the relative financial costs would be similar in terms of opportunity cost. Should a CEO pay $100,000 for a drivers license? This leads down a very slippery slope. Is there really an epidemic of rich people committing crimes at a higher rate than the non-rich? It doesn’t seem like criminality rates are higher among the rich, thus the premise that rich people should have a larger deterrent doesn’t seem to have much support in terms of evidence.
    - drodgers 8y ago
      No. Scaling jail sentences based on income would mean that the monetary size of the punishment was (roughly) constant between a rich and poor offender; just like if they were charged the same number of dollars as a fine. However, just as with fines, it would mean that the subjective effect of the punishment is much greater for the poorer person. If the goal is deterrence, then we need care about how subjectively costly the punishment will be to each person. Having a high income doesn't make your time subjectively more valuable, but it does mean that you can trade it for more money. A rich and a poor person would likely value a day of their own time quite similarly, but they would each value $100 quite differently.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]