Despite opposition from critics, Minister of Justice and Security Dilan Yesilgöz-Zegerius is sticking to her plan to raise traffic fines by ten per cent as of 1 January 2024. She is doing this to cover the budget gap of her ministry, which critics argue amounts to a ‘disguised tax.’ Elena Kantorowicz-Reznichenko, Professor of Quantitative Empirical Legal Studies at Erasmus School of Law, is also critical of these plans. In the NRC, she explains that fines are not primarily intended as state income and that a system of income-dependent fines could be fairer.
The Minister has explicitly stated that the fine increase aims to fill a budget gap. This reasoning raises eyebrows among critics and, according to Kantorowicz-Reznichenko, is not legally pure: “Fines are meant to deter offenders; they should punish and guide. They should only be increased if it results in more deterrence or if the severity of the crime justifies it.”
Highest income, heaviest burden
According to the Professor of Quantitative Empirical Legal Studies, a system of so-called day fines would be much fairer. In this system, the fine amount is determined based on the daily income of the person, with the severity of the fine reflected in the number of days for which the ("daily") income is taken as a punishment. As a result, the fine amount is income-dependent, and the poor and the wealthy are relatively equally burdened. Kantorowicz-Reznichenko explains: “An income-dependent fine system reduces inequality and is proportional. In the current system, someone with a low income is heavily affected by a 400 euro fine, while someone with a high income hardly feels the fine. This is not something you should want, that people with little money are hit harder.”
Fine after tax
So, people with low incomes should not be punished more severely, but the same goes for the opposite. Since people with high incomes pay progressively more taxes than people with low incomes, the fine amount should be calculated not based on gross salary but on salary after taxation, according to Kantorowicz-Reznichenko: “That is fairer. Otherwise, you are paying the fine percentage on a larger amount, namely your gross salary. In the Netherlands, higher-income people pay higher tax rates, so they would be disproportionately affected if fines were based on gross income.”
Advance in Europe
Income-dependent fines have been introduced in almost half of the EU countries, but the system has yet to appear on the political agenda in the Netherlands. Kantorowicz-Reznichenko says, “I also do not think judges see the problem with the current system that much. There is no conviction that the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.” However, the professor says the Netherlands could easily implement income-dependent fines: “Compared to other countries, we have an extremely transparent tax system. The government has relevant financial information from citizens available, which means that the system of income-dependent fines can work well.”
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Click here for the entire article in the NRC (in Dutch).
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