British PC Tax to Replace TV License?

caffeination writes "Here in Britain, anything capable of receiving live or virtually live broadcasts is considered TV receiving equipment. Because the detector vans can't actually 'catch' people watching such broadcasts on their computers, the BBC is proposing a blanket tax on PCs instead. They received several thousand responses to this green paper, ranging from the insightful to the unprintable."

Comments

Only if you can receive broadcasts

[ScottyLad]

You don't need a TV licence unless your television is set up to receive broadcast programmes.

In my house, we don't watch any broadcast programmes, but we do watch a lot of DVD's, so we have a set hooked up to our DVD player.

Recently we were getting increasingly threatening letters from the TV Licensing people, which I ignored after checking checking on http://tvlicensing.co.uk/information/index.jsp#lin k1 which states you need a licence "If you use a TV or any other device to receive or record TV programmes"

Roll on a couple of weeks and one of the TV inspectors came knocking on my door, had a quick look at my setup and agreed I don't need to pay a license as I had no aerial and no way of receiving broadcast programmes.

Result!

What about mobile phones?

[BarryNorton]

I'm not kidding, there was in sensationalist article in a newspaper (so poor I'm sorry to admit having read it) today (ok, it was the Mail), saying that shops are sending the details of all purchases of phones with video capabilities on to the licensing authority!