Well, a few years ago a Finnish citizen got a giant fine for speeding, based on his income: https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-31709454

IIRC he managed to have it later reduced because his income dropped sharply (tied to Nokia's fortunes I think), although I can't find a mention in the article.

I wrongly assumed this was common practice, but it seems that it really is mostly in Scandinavian countries that criminal fines in general are issued in units, with each unit amount is based on the receivers income: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day-fine

France, Germany, Romania, Switzerland and Macao are all not Scandinavian. The German Wikipedia is missing most from this list but also includes Austria and Liechtenstein.

But I thought it was more common as well, as it seems pretty fair.

In Norway you get fined for driving under influence proportional to your income, typically 1.5 times your monthly income before taxes.

What if you’re a billionaire but lost money in the last fiscal year?

Above a certain income level, being fined 1.5 months of your income is mearly a blip on the radar.

Plus most of the super rich actually have quite a small personal income, their wealth is from ownership of companies. There's a high chance you earned more than Bezos last year [0].

[0] https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/11/tech/jeff-bezos-pay/index...

> Is there any other non-business analogy where you get a discount on a fine, because you hit rough times financially?

Yes I think judges routinely take ability to pay into account when considering punishment in criminal cases.

In Denmark you can apply to get a fine halved if you earn less than $2250 monthly.