Proportionate to what? Net worth? Income? If you actually think it through you are not targeting the rich by doing this. You are targeting small businesses and middle class families.
You could curve the proportion to income to scale impact to something more equitable. How you decide what’s equitable would be another problem to solve, but I imagine it would involve benchmarking around the middle class and poverty line. Right now fine rates are okay for the middle class, so keep the proportion similar, fine rates really fuck up poor people, and fine rates mean nothing to the upper class. So imagine you you feel would be a fair impact for a fine and scale it accordingly.
Correct, they are different. But if you accept that evaluating a person’s wealth happens successfully for taxation, there’s no reason why the same metric can’t be used for fines.
So instead of the law saying “If you speed, pay x amount of money” you want to make it a 400 page document for every city/county that details exemptions and allows for fine deductions based on specific scenarios? If you believe that will solve the issue you are incredibly naive. We can’t even get rich people to pay their taxes now, what makes you think adding a similar fine system will get them to pay their fines?
Complicating the tax law is a big part of why our tax system is so fucked.
So it sounds like you don’t believe progressive taxation works. I guess that’s an understandable viewpoint. But if you think complexity is the problem, I have a hard time accepting your assessment of me as naïve. People that want simple solutions to complex problems are showing the lack of sophistication that defines naïvety.
You didn’t ask if I thought it works. You asked if it could be implemented. Im also not suggesting complexity is the problem. It is part of the problem.
Maybe there’s some precedent, but I can’t see why equally proportionate punishment should be unconstitutional.
Proportionate to what? Net worth? Income? If you actually think it through you are not targeting the rich by doing this. You are targeting small businesses and middle class families.
You could curve the proportion to income to scale impact to something more equitable. How you decide what’s equitable would be another problem to solve, but I imagine it would involve benchmarking around the middle class and poverty line. Right now fine rates are okay for the middle class, so keep the proportion similar, fine rates really fuck up poor people, and fine rates mean nothing to the upper class. So imagine you you feel would be a fair impact for a fine and scale it accordingly.
So you don’t think progressive taxation is possible?
Fines are not the same as taxes. Taxes already scale with income.
Correct, they are different. But if you accept that evaluating a person’s wealth happens successfully for taxation, there’s no reason why the same metric can’t be used for fines.
So instead of the law saying “If you speed, pay x amount of money” you want to make it a 400 page document for every city/county that details exemptions and allows for fine deductions based on specific scenarios? If you believe that will solve the issue you are incredibly naive. We can’t even get rich people to pay their taxes now, what makes you think adding a similar fine system will get them to pay their fines?
Complicating the tax law is a big part of why our tax system is so fucked.
So it sounds like you don’t believe progressive taxation works. I guess that’s an understandable viewpoint. But if you think complexity is the problem, I have a hard time accepting your assessment of me as naïve. People that want simple solutions to complex problems are showing the lack of sophistication that defines naïvety.
You didn’t ask if I thought it works. You asked if it could be implemented. Im also not suggesting complexity is the problem. It is part of the problem.