Because income tax isn't a criminal act.
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85 in a 50 Results in $290K Fine
- Thread starter Terry Olaes
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Because income tax isn't a criminal act.
There is a premise of principals that one has to uphold. You are trying to bridge an argument with ideology. You perceive these as problems. Many people don't. You don't like it, then fix it. I'm an American. I live in the United States of America. There are things I don't like about it, but considering the alternative around the rest of the world, we, I have it pretty good. I will deal with these issues as they come up. Solving them as best as I can.
And passed by vote of the people or legislators. You're point?
Enduring_Warrior
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Actually you just have to look to the side (Latin America) and inside the U.S. that the Communists did won. Thanks to the fall of the U.S.S.R. they managed to spread inadvertently and are now everywhere. But the guy that said this was talking about fairy tale spooky communist characters. The ones they use to scare you off of doing things. Too bad the ones in real life are worse
Actually you just have to look to the side (Latin America) and inside the U.S. that the Communists did won. Thanks to the fall of the U.S.S.R. they managed to spread inadvertently and are now everywhere. But the guy that said this was talking about fairy tale spooky communist characters. The ones they use to scare you off of doing things. Too bad the ones in real life are worse
Missing the point again? Why am I not surprised? You guys couldn't come up with a decent rebuttal if you tried. The reasons for such a system have been given, and the other options possible have even been enumerated. But, your attention spans don't last beyond the first post, right?
What? So now you don't want to get rich because you'd get fined more for breaking LAWS? Here's an idea, don't break the law and you can keep all your money, your big house, your nice car. And if you were rich enough to pay a 290K fine, you should of built a race track in the first place.
UrielDagda
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Because in America, the definition of communism seems to be any action, law or thought that treats the rich like anything but royalty.... Then we wonder why the corporate rich tend to treat the rest of us like we're hot dog buns and they're pudding filled foot-longs.
UrielDagda
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Yeah, but America's solution to have jail time for practically everything, prisons bursting at the seams, non-violent criminals going in to prison and coming out with a doctorate in Criminal Violence, really isn't that appetizing to many other countries.
We might like to bask in the glory have having more of our population imprisoned than everybody else, but other countries want to steer as far away from that model as humanly possible.
UrielDagda
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Well then we should get rid of it, just jail people, and see how safe it is for the rest of the population to drive on large pebbled roads with huge random potholes in them. Of course then people would bitch endlessly about how the government is too lazy to fix roads they don't have any money for.
Although, car repair shops would love that, because people would be paying pretty much the price of their car for repairs every few months.
UrielDagda
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Yeah, yeah, and Marxism is evil, so anybody that doesn't believe in the exact opposite: The rich should get a free ride, while the poor gets raped and picks up the bulk of responsibility.... They must also be evil!
Conservatives really need to expand their minds a bit. Just because somebody that might have been an asshat said something doesn't necessarily make the exact opposite "right". Pure Marxism might not be a good thing, and definitely isn't something for America, but the current state of predatory C(r)apitalism is just utterly destroying us.
But there is one thing we all have to face. Some modicum of socialism in the strictest sense, in regard to functioning as a cohesive society, is a must for any culture to exist with amenities afforded to us in this day and age. You can't have public infrastructure if everybody is just trying to acquire and keep everything they can get their hands on like a petulant two-year-old that hasn't learned how to share his toys.
Of course that isn't to say the system isn't screwed up. But arguing about it isn't going to fix it.. It's the excessive argumentation that has screwed it up! It's too divisive, and only one side ever wins-- the wealthy special interests.
A fine based on the value of the car would be less "fair" than the one based on daily net-income (Tagessätze).
As an individual can distribute the available funds differently, towards the car, housing, drugs ect.
It would not have the same effect on the driver, as the offender could be a millionaire having fun in a disposable ricer, or a low payed factory worker starving himself to afford the maintenance of his personally restored classic supercar.
If car based, the results in this case, for the same offense would vary from a smug smile, to complete ruin.
The german/swiss net-income based system is not only used for traffic offenses, but also applied in different situations as alternative to prison and social work.
I dont know what your car has to do with anything, but your income yeah. Rich dudes can speed all day, hire a lawyer pay an equivalent of 2 bucks and be an their way. They should fine based on income.
The only logical, car based fine I can think of would be to fine based on the noise level in the car at given speed... if you drive a car like a Lexus LS, MB S-class, VW Phaeton ect. you will still be comfortable at 120 mph.
Whereas less insulated and lower end cars will exhibit strong vibration and noise levels, even if you're only doing 80.
So the driver of a low end vehicle will have to put more effort into driving fast, deliberately ignoring the obvious signs of being at the car's limit, theoretically justifying a higher penalty.
Which would lead to cheaper cars getting higher fines.
maddude
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Wouldn't putting a higher fine on the rich give the police more of an incentive to target areas in which rich people drive so as to bring in more fines? It seems to me that this act would lead to poor(er) communities receiving less police coverage, and could lead to more crime in the area. So in that regard, this tax on the rich would end up hurting the poor. Seems short sighted.
You still would have to get this pass the eighth amendment as well, which I hope wouldn't happen.
Lastly, I would like to see a study that shows that the rich speed more than other groups, and that they are causing a problem. I can only speak for the area I live in, but I don't see Ferrari's and Porches speeding by me, I see rust buckets and jalopies.
Why institute a punishment that will cause unfavorable outcomes such as less police coverage in certain areas, violate the eighth amendment, and solve a problem that may not exist?
You still would have to get this pass the eighth amendment as well, which I hope wouldn't happen.
Lastly, I would like to see a study that shows that the rich speed more than other groups, and that they are causing a problem. I can only speak for the area I live in, but I don't see Ferrari's and Porches speeding by me, I see rust buckets and jalopies.
Why institute a punishment that will cause unfavorable outcomes such as less police coverage in certain areas, violate the eighth amendment, and solve a problem that may not exist?
The fine in the article is an exception, "normal" speeding in "car hating switzerland" (as clarkson calls it) is still fined using a standard catalog. The income dependent fine only comes into play when you get into areas that could potentially include jail time (if payment is not possible or the fined unwilling to pay).
These exceptions are unlikely to cause a shift in police distribution.
Your US scenario is interesting, and it would have to be calculated if the revenue generated by an increased rich-area surveillance would be sufficient to finance the additional manpower necessary to retain of even strengthen slum police coverage...
Although a bit off topic.. I'm wondering, is there a standardized US system that sets how high the bail of an accused should be...?
it is not based on affordability or someone's income. it is based on what PUNISHES you. If the offense carries a fine, the fine is set at an amount that PUNISHES the person that commited the offense.
computerpro3
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Te sooner people realize that the world will never be fair, they will stop wasting resources on trying to make it so. Then we can reallocate those resources to areas that actually matter.
Guess what? I never get tickets because I could afford a $500 radar detector and $750 laser jammer and $150 CB radio setup. countermeasures. Is that fair? No. So go ahead, outlaw them. I'll still use them, but just hide them better. Is that fair? Nope, but there's no way to stop me from doing it.
You simply can't legislate equality.
Guess what? I never get tickets because I could afford a $500 radar detector and $750 laser jammer and $150 CB radio setup. countermeasures. Is that fair? No. So go ahead, outlaw them. I'll still use them, but just hide them better. Is that fair? Nope, but there's no way to stop me from doing it.
You simply can't legislate equality.
computerpro3
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As soon as a rich person gets hit by one of those excessive fines, he's going to drop off his car at the nearest high end autoshop and tell them "Install whatever it takes so I never get a ticket again".
They'll get jammers, radar detectors, all custom hidden inside the car's body and completely undetectable. They will never get a ticket again, leading to less income for the government and creating less of a punishable situation in the long run.
If the fines were reasonable, they would just pay them and be done with it.
See how that works?
piscian18
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Simply my response to the article, not the thread. Got a problem with it?
kirbyrj
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Marxism is essentially economic determinism, hence the use of a monetary system to determine fines fits in nicely with Marxism. And this is sharing wealth. Rich people pay more than poorer people.
Doling out appropriate punishment for each individual is foolish as it removes any idea of people being equal under the law. The next thing you'll see is that rich people and corporations will be treated differently so that they can continue to make money and pay taxes.
SixtyWattMan
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kirbyrj
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Rich people and corporations aren't treated differently from normal people right now?
I mean more in an official way like penalties for crimes are different, not that you can just afford a better attorney, etc.
Where is the incentive to do better then? If I know that by expanding my business I put myself into the next tax/fine bracket, why would I? This and other reasons severely restricts expansion and such of American business. It's one of the reasons why the US is in economic turmoil.
Are you kidding me? You do know that tax brackets are cumulative, right? You don't make LESS money by making more money before taxes, just because you're in a higher tax bracket, because for instance, $60K - 80K is in one tax bracket, $80K - 120K in another, etc.
Where's the incentive? A person making $200K vs. a person making $100K will have a lot more money to spend, provided that the $200K person isn't needlessly wasting it. Motivation starts with you. Just because you have no ambition doesn't mean others feel the same. You can obviously only be driven to ambition by huge gobs of money, but you know, it helps to have a little modesty.
Oh, and by the way, earning a good grade in university is the exact same concept. The difference between getting a 60 and a 70 in a course is FAR less than getting an 85 and a 95. For the 95, you have to work a lot harder, make everything perfect (except for bird courses where everyone gets a 95).
Do you understand how tax brackets work? If there's a bracket from 1-50, then from 51-75, and you're making 65, you pay the first rate on 50, then the second rate on 15, you don't just pay the second rate on your entire income. That would be stupid.
As for the next "fine bracket", are you being dumb on purpose? I don't pay fines, but not because I'm rich. No, it's because I don't drive like a moron. Drive like a moron = you pay fines. Paying fines has nothing to do with being rich or not rich.
The incentive should be to follow the law, not get rich enough to not have to. The idea that increasing fines based on your income/networth would remove the incentive to becoming rich is asinine. But by all means, feel free to not become rich because you won't be able to break the law when you do it, I'm not losing any sleep over it.
People should only be equal under the law in regards to breaking it. That is, if we both drive 15 over the speed limit, we both broke the law. People should not, however, be equal under the law in their *punishment*. Motivation, circumstance, past history, lifestyle, all of these are things a judge should(and dose) consider when handing out a punishment for a crime.
kirbyrj
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Motivation, circumstance, past history (not so much lifestyle) should be taken into consideration equally between all offenders. Economic situation shouldn't be taken into account.
All that is already being taken into account, and you haven't explained why economic situation shouldn't be taken into account in a money-based punishment model. Read what I've underlined and bolded very carefully. You can either do it like they do with a money-based punishment model, or you can get rid of that model entirely and use prisons. Guess what the Swiss have decided?
Why?
kirbyrj
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Prisons are a fairer form of punishment.
Because motivation, circumstance, and past history have bearing on the "crime" (in this case speeding). Economic situation has no bearing on whether or not someone is speeding. I have no problem with increased fines for repeat offenders. I have a problem with increased fines based on income because the fine imposed is in no way connected to the crime.
This isn't true at all. A wealthy individual is much more likely to speed given a fixed fine, than a person with a more moderate income.
I fully understand how tax brackets work. I should have worded my post differently, I should have said that there is less incentive to do better; not "no incentive".
I still don't believe that you should be fined on what your ability to pay is. It may lead to even more of a social rift between the high/middle/low classes.
kirbyrj
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If you are caught repeatedly speeding, you will lose your license. Once again, economic situation does not affect speeding.
Not if you can afford a several thousand dollar lawyer that can get you out of it.
No one is saying rich people speed more. Economic situations do effect relative value of money, thereby effecting relative severity of punishment, thereby effecting the likelihood that said punishment will be an effective deterrent against future infractions.
BUT WHAT DO I KNOW? I'M JUST A COMMUNIST THAT HATES PEOPLE MORE SUCCESSFUL THAN ME.