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All fines revenue given to everyone

  (+4)
(+4)
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Instead of fines being counted towards total revenue of a government...

Why not just mandate that all the revenue be split equally to everyone. Since in theory, if you get a fine, you are reimbursing the damage to the people not government.

This would reduce the incentive to change fine policy to mask any need to increase taxes to cover any shortfall. (e.g. changing the yellow light timing for increase red light fines).

Plus bumping up fines based on a flat fee is essentially a regressive 'hidden tax' compared to the more visible and fairer "standard tax". Not enough to say "don't get fined", if there are incentives to keep bumping up fines, and making it harder to avoid accidentally hitting one.

A fine is meant to be an disincentive, not a politically easy revenue source.

edit: thx Loris

mofosyne, Sep 08 2015

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       [+] in that it promotes government transparency and is a precedental step away from use of arbitrary "revenue tools".   

       I was thinking, in the context of sin taxes (alcohol and tobacco), to have them pay for education against said sins and reformation of the sinners.
FlyingToaster, Sep 08 2015
  

       There's a well-known Swedish example of this where speeding fines collected from a traffic camera were put into the prize pot for a lottery which all non-speeding drivers who had gone past the same camera were entered into.
hippo, Sep 08 2015
  

       I like the idea, but I think you meant 'disincentive'.
Loris, Sep 08 2015
  

       /the people not government/   

       Ideally the government represents the people and does not have its own interests separate from those of its people.   

       My grandpas favorite saying about taxes: "Don't tax me, don't tax thee; tax that fellow behind the tree". Governments should identify a moneyed population from whom they can wring revenue via taxes, surcharges, airport fees, or fines, this population being distinct from the one the government represents.
bungston, Sep 08 2015
  

       /how would you.../   

       One could tax off road bikers, Christian scientists, Quakers and those consarned space aliens.
bungston, Sep 08 2015
  
      
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