[merpnderp]

I was trying to think of a place to stick the money that wouldn't incentivize over-policing and couldn't think of one. But your option is perfect. There's obviously no incentive for government employees to return money to tax payers, so if anything, this would incentivize under-enforcement of fines and fees.

[QuadmasterXLII]

Have the defendant bring the fine in cash, and ritually burn it with witnesses present. This is equivalent to collecting the money, because it allows the government to print slightly more money without inflation, but verifiably prevents anyone directly involved from pocketing it.

[Gibbon1]

I thought long and hard about that one and decided that fines should be remitted to the social security administration and booked against the perps account as a contribution.

As far as I can tell this is extremely easy to implement. And utterly removes any mal-incentives.

[maym86]

It means the fine could have less of a deterrant effect on anyone who can afford it as they can frame it as money they'll get back in the long run. Why not speed if your ticket counts towards your retirement.

Having a inbuilt social good for breaking the law might make people more willing to do so as they can justify their illegal action as a contribution to public good.

[zipwitch]

Fines also need to be proportional to income, or you're (potentially) doing far more harm than intended or neccessary to the poorest violators, and failing to deter the wealthier ones.

[Gibbon1]

You already have the problem that small fines aren't much of a deterrent effect on wealthy people. Though one might be surprised how butthurt well to do people can be over trivial amounts of money.

A mitigating thing is monthly SS insurance benefits max out.

[maym86]

Speed until you max out your social security benefit is a crazy incentive.

[Gibbon1]

You can also max out the points on your license and your insurance companies patience.

[maym86]

That happens either way, the discussion is about having an effective fine to discourage people and crediting the person's social security account clearly doesn't do that.

[slededit]

That way if I want to contribute more than the maximum to my 401k I can use this as a workaround. And drive super fast too!

[BLKNSLVR]

Use it to fund Internal Affairs...

[antsar]

Aren't government employees also taxpayers? The incentive is much weaker, but still there.

[coldtea]

So weak as to make the point totally moot

[CM30]

Well at least then everyone would benefit rather than just the police/government.