14 Feb, 2007, Guest wrote in the 1st comment:
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… or a detector van catches you watching TV and you're asked to show your TV licence, …


KaVir posted this in a thread on mudmagic, and I can't tell if this part of it was being sarcastic or not. Is this something that is common in European countries? Do people actually need a license to receive television broadcasts???
14 Feb, 2007, Aule wrote in the 2nd comment:
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It's like registering and renewing your car here in the States, except in the UK (and other countries - not sure?) you have to pay a license fee and register your tv when you buy it, and then renew it each year. I think in theory it's supposed to pay for things like the BBC.

Any Europeans can feel free to correct me on this. :)
14 Feb, 2007, Fizban wrote in the 3rd comment:
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Umm…that's ridiculous… What's next, registering your radio?
14 Feb, 2007, Brinson wrote in the 4th comment:
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British TV doesn't have ads, though, correct?
15 Feb, 2007, Tricky wrote in the 5th comment:
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Of the terrestrial channels (UHF), the BBC does not have adverts (except their own). ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 do have commercial adverts.

Television licensing in the UK
Television licensing in the UK (history)
BBC Licence Fee
15 Feb, 2007, kaylus wrote in the 6th comment:
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Fizban said:
Umm…that's ridiculous… What's next, registering your radio?


That's subjective. Ridiculousness is measured purely on an individual basis, as some of us are quite a bit more crazy than others. That being said the BBC offers a good deal, in my opinion, for the money being paid for the license. Hell, i'd pay $15 a month for good quality commercial free television.

Then again have you yet noticed that there are alot of cities and even states adopting communication taxes that extended to services such as television, internet, etc. in addition to the common telephone taxes… in addition to local communications taxes. While, admittedly, it applies to cable or satellite TV – the taxes can equal as much as that TV tax and amount to the same. Our state communications service tax rate in Florida is 9.17%, not including the 2% for local taxes or the extra 4% for satellite TV. THATS Ridiculous!

Or, of course, you can call it as silly as all the taxes on a Cellular phone in the united states. My $49.99 plan ends up having taxes of almost 20% when you add in every tax from the Federal down to Local government!!

There are quite a bit of taxes that are silly, but i'll stay on topic. Most people's knee-jerk reaction to a TV tax is to say "That's silly!". I think that's mainly because they push it up front, while our taxes are hidden in the back. We also don't pay for the taxes when we have broadcast, but then again – broadcast in my area amounts to 3 fuzzy channels chock full of commercials. I reiterate: I would pay a small fee to have two handfuls of nice channels without adverts.

As I said (again) this is all subjective, it's my opinion and maybe you don't agree. But hell, getting something for your taxes is always good, yes?

Kaylus
15 Feb, 2007, Fizban wrote in the 7th comment:
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*shrug* I suppose the difference is I wouldn't pay $1 per year for a TV, I use the computer for 10+ hours per day, my TV is only for videogames.
15 Feb, 2007, KaVir wrote in the 8th comment:
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Samson said:
Do people actually need a license to receive television broadcasts???


Worse - you need a license to use a television set, or anything else that can watch or record television programmes, including video or DVD recorders, and even computers or mobile phones if they're set up with the ability to receive signals.

In the UK (where I'm from) a yearly colour TV Licence costs £131.50 ($257 US) while a black and white licence costs £44.00 ($86 US).

Fizban said:
Umm…that's ridiculous… What's next, registering your radio?


That was abolished in the UK in 1971.

However I currently live in Munich, Germany, where a radio licence costs €66.24 ($87), although I pay €204.36 ($268) per year for a combined TV and radio licence. I have to pay this simply for owning a TV set, even though I only ever watch DVDs (I brought my TV set over with me from the UK, and it isn't fully compatible here, thus if I watch normal programmes there is no sound).

As of this year, there's also a licence fee for owning a TV-capable mobile/cell phones or a PCs equiped with a TV card, although it's only for people who don't already have a TV set.

The German GEZ (TV licensing people) are a bunch of thugs. They assume you have a TV set by default, and if you don't pay the licence they'll send you threatening letters, and every few months they'll send someone to your home to ask you questions and try to get inside to look for a TV (although legally they can't force their way in). If you get rid of your TV set, or even move into a shared house where the licence is already being paid, it takes weeks of beauracracy, phone calls and letters before they'll finally stop charging you - you phone them, argue for half an hour, and eventually they say 'ok'. Then you get a bill. You phone them, they don't know anything about the previous phone call, but after much arguing they say 'ok'…then you get another bill… And if you don't pay the bills immediately they gain interest and you start receiving threats of legal action.

In theory you need to pay for each individual device you own, but in practice people just pay for one TV and one radio (unless you are a business - even self employeed - in which case the GEZ will seriously crack down and charge you for each unit).

Anyway, I could rant for hours about this, but I'm sure you get the idea. It really pisses me off.
15 Feb, 2007, Fizban wrote in the 9th comment:
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So basically it sounds like it is ridiculous, not the tiny fee that Kaylus made it out to be… Also Florida must have a reasonably larger tax than many other places, the percent here, in Michigan, is 6.8%.
15 Feb, 2007, kaylus wrote in the 10th comment:
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Fizban said:
So basically it sounds like it is ridiculous, not the tiny fee that Kaylus made it out to be… Also Florida must have a reasonably larger tax than many other places, the percent here, in Michigan, is 6.8%.


He was quoting fees from Germany for his radio tax. When he stated the fee for a UK Television license he stated: £131.50 ($257 US). Which comes out to £13.15 a month. I have two responses to this:

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Worse - you need a license to use a television set, or anything else that can watch or record television programmes, including video or DVD recorders, and even computers or mobile phones if they're set up with the ability to receive signals.


That is half true. You need a license if you are using a television set to receive television signals. This is corroborated by the TVLA, if you wish to have a TV that isn't licensed you must send them a letter explaining that the TV channels have been unprogrammed. As with all big government agencies or immense corporations you may wade for a while before it sinks in. But most of what you will get is annoying mails that tell you that you need a license, if you keep the original response from when you informed TVLA of your intent, then it's no big deal. I've heard rare horror stories, but nobody I personally know has yet to relay one.

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So basically it sounds like it is ridiculous, not the tiny fee that Kaylus made it out to be


I hardly think that £13 a month is ridiculous for commercial-free television. But as I stated prior, that is subjective. If your supposition is that when you take £13 and convert it straight across then it is $25(!), you are slightly mistaken. Direct currency conversions are not indicative of actual cost. Cost of living does come into account, I recently did up my estimates for another relocation (into England) – a job (with the same requirements) comparable to a $35,000-$50,000 US a year IT job here was at £35,000-£50,0000 ($68537 US to $97,910 US!) in the UK. While $1300 rent here translated to around £1300 ($2545 US) for comparable living… I could continue, but the point was that you have to look at value on-economy of the country you look at. £13 is only equivalent to $25 if you are working and living in the US.

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Also Florida must have a reasonably larger tax than many other places


Not really, I think the fact is that Michigan might not have caught up with the manys states that are expanding their communications taxes. Also realize that most of these state communication taxes are ON-TOP of sales taxes. Florida is moderate in it's tax in comparison to some states (Virginia! California! Ohio(?) North Carolina!). Beyond the issue though, I barely watch more than 3 channels on my television, and I would gladly pay £13 a month for that package. It's all based on preference :)
15 Feb, 2007, Conner wrote in the 11th comment:
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Well, you're mistaken about Florida (at 9.17%) being moderate compared to Virginia at least. After reading what you'd posted there, I checked my Verizon Wireless Bill to see what my taxes are here in Virginia and it seems that I'm paying 8.17% in combined "Verizon Wireless' Surcharges and Other Charges & Credits" (which are listed as including: Federal Universal Service Charge [1.4081%], Regulatory Charge [0.0971%], Administrative Charge [0.7769%] & Virginia Gross Receipts Surcharge [0.0067%]) an "Taxes,Governmental Surcharges and Fees" (which are listed as including: Virginia State Emergency 911 Fee [1.4567%] & Virginia Communication Sales Tax [4.3702%]). Now, I'll grant you that those numbers don't all add up to the total percentage I've listed, but frankly the bill doesn't provide the percentages so I had to do the math based on the amount charged for each item divided by the sub-total of the bill before those taxes to get the percentage for each (which I only reported the percentage to the 6th decimal place) and I just did the same division of the total charges for those various fees against the amount of this bill before any of those fees. But the end result is that, no matter how you slice it, my Verizon Wireless bill here in Virginia doesn't support your claim that Florida's rate of 9.17% is moderate compared to Virginia. On the other hand, it does support your claim that Florida charging 9.17% isn't that far fetched as we in Virginia only pay 1% less than that.
15 Feb, 2007, Tijer wrote in the 12th comment:
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And you are forced to have a television license even if you dont watch the bbc channels….. In the days of multichannel television that is stupid!
15 Feb, 2007, kaylus wrote in the 13th comment:
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But the end result is that, no matter how you slice it, my Verizon Wireless bill here in Virginia doesn't support your claim that Florida's rate of 9.17% is moderate compared to Virginia. On the other hand, it does support your claim that Florida charging 9.17% isn't that far fetched as we in Virginia only pay 1% less than that.


My bad, we are pretty overused. Well, for the most part you are looking at your wireless versus your cable. The communications tax will remain the same, but the other fees will change. I was attempting a comparison based on an invalid site. According to Virginia's website the tax for your cable is: 5% + .64c usage tax (Taxes) w/ other fees. So your tax isn't too bad. In fact, I will state that -by state- Florida has one of the higher communications / cable television taxes.

I am still going to maintain that I would rather have some channels w/o advertising for a small fee then just pay a small fee tacked on to my bills that really returns nothing. Although Tijer does have a point that it does suck if you are not watching the BBC channels but have another service instead. The fee isn't bad, the imposition of it could be bad, but if I were to go that route I have alot more things to complain about in both countries, things that far outweigh simple taxation on communication.

Kaylus
16 Feb, 2007, Conner wrote in the 14th comment:
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Overall I agree with your position, Kaylus.

I was just using the only bill I have handy that features communication taxes as our cable bill hasn't arrived yet for the month. *shrug*
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