Wealth

A $60,000 speeding ticket!

The next time you get a speeding ticket, be grateful you don't live in Finland—and that you don't make $7 million a year.

Like many Nordic countries, Finland bases its speeding tickets only partly on the actual speed violation. Most of the fine is determined by the violator's income. So when businessman Reima Kuisla got stopped for doing 64 miles per hour in a 50 mph zone, authorities looked at his 2013 tax return and saw that he made 6.5 million euros, or more than $7 million.

According to the BBC, Kuisla was given a fine of 54,000 euros, or just under $60,000.

A file photo of a police action in Finland.
Janne Nousiainen | AFP | Getty Images

The BBC said Kuisla took to his Facebook page to complain and said that he was considering moving abroad.

"Finland is impossible to live in for certain kinds of people who have high incomes and wealth," he wrote.

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But Kuisla's ticket is cheap compared to others given in the Nordic countries, which now tie fines to income or the value of the violators' car. In 2010, a Ferrari driver in Switzerland with a history of violations and a net worth of more than $20 million got a ticket for $290,000. In Germany, fines for speeding tickets can reach as high as $16 million.

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Politicians say the wealth-based tickets are a way to deter the rich—who can easily pay fines—from breaking the law. But clearly, governments also like the revenue.

Either way, life in the Nordic fast lane can get expensive.