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A fine is money paid as a financial punishment for the commission of minor crimes or as the settlement of a claim. A synonym, typically used in civil law actions, is mulct.
In the UK fines are imposed for Corporate Manslaughter. Hardly a minor crime. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.138.12.194 (talk) 22:30, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Probably more accurate to talk about a penalty than a punishment. For a poor person, a small fine might be punishing. For a rich person or a corporation, even a large fine might be just the cost of doing business. Ben Aveling 18:15, 27 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't feel qualified to add this sort of information, but I haven't been able to find anything in Wikipedia about fine as an adjective - other than the slang uses of the word. 69.8.206.56 17:57, 9 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Try looking in a dictionary. Peterkingiron 22:22, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I suggest to remove the part "Fines in English land transactions" and incorporate this into a separate (and expanded) article, as this part has no bearing whatsoever to the punishment of crimes, but is a form of what nowadays perhaps would be best described as a kind of registration fee or property transfer tax. Bonicolli (talk) 02:32, 20 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I would suggest that the two concepts (punishment and payment for land) actully share an origin. Since this is only quite a short article, there is no need to split it. Yes the payment to a lord on the transmission of land was a sort of tax, but it was more than a mere registration fee. The fine (or premium) under a lease was a form of advnaced rent, and could (indeed can) be a very substantial sum indeed. The best reason for splitting an article is that it has become too large. This one has not, so I Oppose the suggestion. However, I propose to alter the start of an article to deal with the objection inherent in the suggestion. Peterkingiron (talk) 15:02, 21 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The entry states that fines are fair, yet a set fine can obviously be a devestating punishment for a low income person and a minor inconvinience to a high income person. There is a sentence about day fines, but no mention of how they can be considered much more just than a tariff fine. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Calamagrostis (talk • contribs) 03:45, 25 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Who gets the money? Suppose a British bank is fined for mis-selling payment protection insurance - who gets the fine money? And how quickly or slowly does the bank have to pay it? Likewise with fines for all sorts of organisations: if they do something wrong and get fined, no reporter ever seems to mention where the fine goes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by UBJ 43X (talk • contribs) 19:23, 2 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
