It's also a tax that penalises one group of people far more significantly than another. If it's supposed to be a method to prevent recalcitrant behaviour as the Commissioner states then the same penalty should be applied fairly to all. But instead you have a situation where one person working in a coffee shop pays a whole weeks wages and maybe has to go onto a payment plan for months or not buy their kids something important, while someone on a very high income cost them 10 minutes of their income and the inconvenience of handing the fine to their secretary to sort out. A fair system would force both people to give up the same amount of their time each. Some say, oh but it's the same money, yes, but you're not buying a service, it's a method the Commissioner uses to supposedly encourage compliance evenly to each individual, and in this regard it fails. In my job I deal constantly with either keeping or giving back fines due to individual circumstances and the system really has no effect on the wealthy yet can destroy lives at the lower end if someone doesn't step in to try to apply it fairly.
