Is a regressive tax really the best way for us to pay for TV?

[NaRvIcK DeViL]

Is a regressive tax really the best way for us to pay for TV?

Communist Russia got a bad press in more ways than one. But at least its apologists could argue there was a choice of two government-sponsored newspapers: Pravda, the Russian for "Truth", and Isvestia, the Russian for "News".

Inevitably, this gave rise to the saying: "Isvestia nye pravda, y Pravda nye isvestia" or "The News isn't the truth and The Truth isn't news." No wonder millions of Soviet citizens gave up reading either rag long before communism collapsed more than 15 years ago.

Which all seemed rather distant in time and space until our wonderful government stated that Britain should retain its government-sponsored TV and radio. Some of the chairs in the BBC boardroom have been rearranged, apparently, but licence fees and powers to send people to prison for not paying them will be preserved in aspic.

Unless I missed it, nobody seemed to object, but it really is very odd. People who wouldn't dream of buying a government-sponsored newspaper – or paying for a licence for the right to read other newspapers – seem to think the BBC's anachronistic funding arrangements are quite alright.

Well, count me out. From the point of view of anyone who would like to pay less tax and enjoy more choice (sorry! I’m a pro-choice fundamentalist), this was enough to make me see red – even if it was no surprise. TV tax, in the form of compulsory licences at £135.50 a go.

According to the Inland Revenue, that's more than we paid in petrol revenue tax. It's even more than capital gains tax or inheritance tax. So we are talking serious money here, even if what we get in return for it is often laughable – unless, of course, it's labelled comedy.

Perhaps that is unfair because there are also many good things on BBC radio, TV and websites. In any case, my purpose here is not to criticise the content but, instead, the extraordinary way in which we are forced to pay for it.

When every other TV and radio broadcaster, as well as every website and publication in Britain, can fund its operations from advertising revenues, subscription fees or cover price, why must the BBC still rely on a regressive form of taxation?

Don't take my word for it; our TV licensing system warrants a somewhat incredulous mention on the official website of the American equivalent of our own Inland Revenue, the Internal Revenue Service. This states: "A regressive tax may at first appear to be a fair way of taxing citizens because everyone, regardless of income, pays the same amount. By taking a closer look, it is easy to see that such a tax causes lower income people to pay a larger share of their income than wealthier people pay."

Then it asks: "Did you know? People in the United Kingdom pay a tax that is unheard of in the United States. They pay the government a fee for every television set they own!
"Who has to pay? All United Kingdom homes who have a tv and the main occupant is under the age of 75 must pay for a TV licence, though citizens who are legally blind pay only 50pc of the full fee."

Well, at least they spared us a second exclamation mark at the end there. Nor are we quaint li'l ole Brits quite the only people in the world to do things this way. The charming woman who is the acceptable face of Television Licensing – has dropped the word "Authority" in a bid to seem less authoritarian – insists that Britain is not alone.

Ireland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Iceland, Hungary, Singapore, Malaysia, Pakistan and South Africa also require their citizens to have a licence to look at a TV.

So that's alright then. But should the BBC really continue to rely on a regressive tax, aggressively enforced by Soviet-style detector vans and backed up by the criminal courts?

No doubt many of the readers – and writers – of Pravda and Isvestia thought nothing could ever change. Then the world turned and so did they.

Petition to: why should we pay for tv licence and also digital.

[Celyn]

Originally Posted by NaRvIcK DeViL

............
"Who has to pay? All United Kingdom residents under the age of 75 must pay for TV licences,........

Not just the people who continue to own a television set and to watch the thing?

[McDink]

IT'S an interesting article, but it doesn't really give a solution to the issue, nor does it state that most European countries implement some form of licence fee, in order to fund public broadcasting services.

I'd rather pay £11.29 per month to the BBC for 8 interactive TV channels of good programming, 10 radio networks and over 50 local TV & radio services, than fork out £15 a month to Sky, for dozens upon dozens of commercial-ridden american re-run crap.

Interesting fact to make your blood boil even more: Channel 4's digital switch-over bill will be paid for from the licence fee.

[NovaBritannia]

Originally Posted by McDink

I'd rather pay £11.29 per month to the BBC for 8 interactive TV channels of good programming, 10 radio networks and over 50 local TV & radio services, than fork out £15 a month to Sky, for dozens upon dozens of commercial-ridden american re-run crap.

As would be your right in a subscription-based world, however forcing other people to make that choice to is illegitimate.

[NaRvIcK DeViL]

Are you being hounded like this?

This is someone else's experience that finally tipped the balance for me and I decide to take up the Baton against the tv licensing system in this country !!

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Two or three years ago I started to receive letters from TV Licensing.

At first, they were in the tone of a polite inquiry: did I have a television and, if I did, had I bought a licence for it? Then they moved on to rebuke: we know you've got one, and we know you haven't licensed it. Finally, they were downright threatening: get a licence, or you're in big trouble.

Did nothing: I had broken no law. We have three televisions and, being a traditional sort of chap, I tend to buy a licence to watch them. I was the victim of a bureaucratic cock-up and could not be bothered to engage in a tiresome correspondence to put it right.

The letters stopped and I assumed TVLA had discovered its error. It had caused us no loss of sleep, but had I been elderly and perhaps a little confused, or an immigrant with a poor grasp of our tongue, I should have been deeply alarmed at the threatening tone.

Then, the other day, the saga started up again. I received a letter which, in its degree of menace, exceeded anything yet. A Mr. John Robinson, the regional manager of the Luton enforcement division of TV Licensing, wrote to me that he had received authorization from the national division to visit my property.
"Our records show you have previously been given opportunities to purchase a TV licence but have neglected to do so," he wrote.
"It is now my duty to make you aware of the following," he went on. "My enforcement officers may visit [my address] without warning, at any time during the day, in the evenings or at weekends. They will assess whether there is evidence of your watching or recording television programmes without a valid TV licence. They could caution you, take your statement and file a report on their findings. Further, they may use detection equipment to obtain proof that a TV signal is being received on this property."

After the usual guff about legal proceedings and a £1,000 fine, Mr. Robinson did at least then have the manners to say if I had already purchased a licence I needed to take no further action. That, of course, is easier said then done. I have had a licence for 14 years, yet the authority seems blissfully unaware of this. My wife rang them to explain: she held on for ages before being told she faced another 10-minute wait, so she gave up.
It gets worse, though. Our television licence expired on March 31. My wife telephoned TVLA and bought a new one, using her credit card. We always used to get our licence from the village post office but that was apparently deemed too convenient by the idiots who run this arm of the Government, and post offices no longer sell them. We have not, of course, yet received a licence, but we know the transaction was completed because her latest credit card bill includes the charge of £131.50 raised by TVLA.

Yet, two days after receiving the letter informing me that these fascists were about to trespass on my property, we received a different sort of threatening letter from TV Licensing world HQ in Bristol. It told me that I still did not have a licence and that I would be in big trouble if I didn't get one – this was 18 days after my wife's credit card was charged by the same TV Licensing world HQ.

What does this tell us about TVLA?

Well, first, it is completely incompetent. The fact that I have always had a television licence but it seems never to have been aware of this, and cannot even work out that we have only just bought a new one, is but the latest proof of its bovine behaviour.

In discussing this problem with others, I have heard of people similarly accused who have been so confused that they have bought two licences – and then, realising their mistake, have spent months getting a refund.
Such a reaction by the innocent is unsurprising, given the neo-Nazi tone of TVLA's communications. The letter that threatens an imminent occupation of my property also says: "If you do not own a TV, please call 0870 241 5941 and inform us."

If I didn't own a television, why on earth should it be incumbent on me to tell the authorities? Do the people who licence firearms expect non-firearms owners to tell them that don't have any rifles in the cupboard? How long before non-motorists have to ring up Swansea and confess that they don't own a car? Where would this insanity, this intrusion, this downright insolence stop?

My wife and I have been discussing what to do when the men from Luton walk up the drive, salivating at the prospect of catching a serious criminal. We won't let them in. Let them call the police, the Brigade of Guards and the SAS if they want to. We have broken no law: and it is up to them to prove we have rather than up to us to prove we haven't.

Or has that crucial freedom also been sold out in modern, authoritarian Britain?

Petition to: why should we pay for tv licence and also digital.

[NaRvIcK DeViL]

The television licence fee will rise to £151.50 (€230.70) from the current £135.50 (€199.50) to provide new programming and digital services, the government said.

Under the deal , the BBC licence fee will rise 3% above the rate of inflation over each of the next two years and then there will be further rises until 2012.

The corporation had asked for a much higher (£180.00 within 2 years), hike to cover increased costs (or as i like to call it Jonathon Ross's wage Bill ) and the national digital TV switchover.

Petition to: why should we pay for tv licence and also digital.

[kathyv]

I just have some comments and one question, and I am not trying to wind anything up with the question, it's curiosity, nothing more. . .

First, we pay about 50 USD a month for direct-TV satellite television which sends us about 10 useful television stations and 5 or 6 useful radio stations, the rest we get is just media garbage. But we don't have to pay to use the TV, I could get free stations off the local transmitter but because those are only networks, (the big 3 as it were, ABC, NBC, CBS) it's just free media garbage. Or we can subscribe to cable which costs as much and gives 1 or 2 useful stations, at least as far as our interests run. Cable in our area tends to focus on a lot of sport and reality, not out choices at all. We can chose to donate to a public TV station to help with public broadcasting because it isn't run on American advertising bucks so avoids the media garbage so rampant on US TV. Vicious circle. Needless to say that we tend to watch the educational stuff on public and private stations, when we watch at all.


Here's my question. If you can receive streaming video of television shows on your computer in the UK, can you watch that for free or do you need to pay a licensing fee to watch, is it even available to watch?