[superchroma]

It could. You could establish a baseline and then have people pay an excess, or just cover it all. Probably only the former is viable.

In the latter case, such a tax doesn't discourage heavy users, it's a lot easier to abuse things when you don't have a direct correlation for how much it's costing; why not have a 1 hour shower? It's only 0.0001c to the taxpayer, and you've had a hard day! Comparatively, if you have to pay for largesse yourself, you may be less likely to splurge as much. Of course, there'll still be a 1% who does because money is nothing to them, but moderately wealthy people won't be so prone to doing so.

We do want to discourage rampant energy and water usage at the end of the day, so fully covering it may not be the best idea.

[mysterydip]

> there'll still be a 1% who does because money is nothing to them

I recently heard someone well off describe fines like parking as "the cost to park here".

[ta8645]

Some countries set fines based on the individual's income level, to dissuade this attitude.

[josephcsible]

But that makes people no longer equal in the eyes of the law. A better solution to that problem is to make sure there's some non-monetary component to the punishment too, e.g., towing the car, which then takes time and inconvenience to retrieve, or community service for worse things than parking tickets.

[feet]

Why would a percentage based fine make people unequal in the eyes of the law? The percentage does not change and everyone would feel the punishment in the same fashion

If a baby were to punch another baby, the second baby would feel pain but if that same baby were to punch a full grown 94kg man, the man would feel nothing. So we scale up the situation appropriately to two 94kg men.

From my perspective, having a small fine only hurts people who are poor where that is not even thought of as a punishment of even an inconvenience for the rich.

[6510]

But it does, the idea of the fine (or any punishment) is to stop you (and others) from doing that again. The equality is in what you are and are not allowed to do and in how harsh the penalty is to you.

[Schroedingersat]

Well then update the law to better refer to what equality is. x% of your wealth + y% of what you could earn this year is far more equal than a set number

[selbyk]

Those things are also much harder to use as punishment

[superchroma]

Yes, other taxation devices should be created to target such individuals.