I assume you're asking for 6th edition, so that's how I'll answer.
The SINner quality has 3 effects:
1) the fluff mentions that your biometrics are on permanent record with "The Man".
2) one rules-crunch effect is that you have a nuyen bleed, representing taxes/bribes you must pay in order to remain free to commit more crimes
3) second rules-crunch effect calls back to the fluff, and imposes a bonus to any attempt to trace your icon through the matrix.
Speaking strictly: Lifestyles automatically cost more, there's no way around it (unless you're willing to retire the character and give in to being convicted of tax fraud). And whenever NPCs are trying to track the character's physical location via the matrix, they get bonus edge for that attempt.
I suspect that the point of your contention might be factor #1: the SINner's biometrics are available to every police and security department in the Sixth World. Arguably, this means that any fingerprint, any tiny droplet of blood, any hair follicle, any piece of shed skin, any use of their natural voice in range of an audio scanner, any time a camera catches their uncovered face, a shadowrunner's jig is up and police know exactly who they are, and that they were at that scene. Frankly, this theme of an overbearing, omni-present security apparatus is the reason that Shadowrunners are assumed by default to be SINless, as that's the natural explanation for why Big Brother can't find them any instant it wants to, right? Well, I sympathize with that view, but the bugbear there is if you presume Shadowrunners have to be SINless in order to not be "naturally selected" out of the crime pool, then the SINner quality shouldn't be available at all. Since it is, then it must be that the underlying premise of "Shadowrunners MUST be SINless in order to survive" must be false.
So I see at least two reasonable ways of looking at the quality given that SINner shadowrunners are, by the fluff, imperiled by their fingerprints being left behind at the scene of a crime when the detective runs their prints through the global SIN register:
A) the increase of lifestyle cost includes bribes to the local security apparatus to push inquiries under the rug when you're involved
B) go ahead and give that bonus Edge to ALL attempts to identify the character, not just attempts to find them via Trace Icon.
depending on your players tastes and campaign theme, there's a third option:
C) if you're a SINner, then you're just fragged if you leave behind biometrics. Get your go bag, forfeit how ever many pre-paid months you have on your current lifestyle, and go to ground until the cops get tired of looking for you.
Edit: I suppose a blend of B and C is possible: Whenever there's a "messy" scene that police/security are sure to forensically examine, give the NPC's bonus edge to find that SINner's fingerprint, or record of their uncovered face being caught on one of the ubiquitous cameras, or to locate their shed hair.