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A comment on How Billionaire Robert Smith Avoided Indictment in Multimillion-Dollar Tax Case. Parent comment

Re:How Billionaire Robert Smith Avoided Indictment in Multim... by dmurray on Wednesday February 03, 2021 @12:00PM (#26015751)
Yeah, it's not intellectually honest to argue "a billionaire committing a billion-dollar tax fraud has a lot to gain, because a billion dollars is a lot of money, but a billionaire getting fined a billion dollars is nothing to him, because diminishing marginal utility."
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Re:How Billionaire Robert Smith Avoided Indictment in Multim... by arrosenberg on Wednesday February 03, 2021 @12:26PM (#26016179)
How is it dishonest? They have a lot to gain financially, and the penalty for doing so (although steep) is not significant enough to have a material impact on the person committing the fraud. That seems like the exact moral hazard that creates this situation.

For a poor person, the same situation is likely life-altering in either case.

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Re:How Billionaire Robert Smith Avoided Indictment in Multim... by jeddy3 on Wednesday February 03, 2021 @12:39PM (#26016406)
> How is it dishonest?

Either a billion dollars is a lot, or it is not.

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Re:How Billionaire Robert Smith Avoided Indictment in Multim... by MrPatan on Wednesday February 03, 2021 @02:31PM (#26018050)
Can you edit your comment to add "To the same person". Some people replying seem to be having a very hard time with it.
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Re:How Billionaire Robert Smith Avoided Indictment in Multim... by treis on Wednesday February 03, 2021 @01:40PM (#26017353)
$1,000 to you is (probably) not a lot. For someone in a third world shithole it's several years to a life time of earnings. Perspective matters when determining if something is "a lot" or not.
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Re:How Billionaire Robert Smith Avoided Indictment in Multim... by jeddy3 on Wednesday February 03, 2021 @02:36PM (#26018105)
Well, yeah, obviously.

But using in the same sentence as both, depending on the point you're trying to prove, is a little dishonest.

As MrPatan pointed out in a sibling comment, the sentence is about the same person.

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Re:How Billionaire Robert Smith Avoided Indictment in Multim... by fuzzer37 on Wednesday February 03, 2021 @01:44PM (#26017408)
1 billion dollars to someone who has 2 billion dollars is not a lot.

1 billion dollars to someone who has 0 dollars is a lot.

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Re:How Billionaire Robert Smith Avoided Indictment in Multim... by digitaltrees on Thursday February 04, 2021 @12:28AM (#26022917)
Keeping a billion for certain is not equal to a 1% chance of paying a billion if, and only if, getting caught. That creates an incentive.
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Re:How Billionaire Robert Smith Avoided Indictment in Multim... by arrosenberg on Wednesday February 03, 2021 @01:39PM (#26017348)
It's clearly both. The behavior of the billionaires makes that clear. Billions of dollars is enough incentive to commit tax fraud, and (hundreds of) millions of dollars in fines has not been enough to disincentive tax fraud.
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