The games i play on my computer have nothing to do with TV that BBC broadcasts.
And many people don't watch BBC content on their TVs.
The point is is that since BBC content is available on PCs, PCs should be taxed in the way TVs are now - especially by 2016 when it's possible that most people will be using their PC's for viewing TV and listening to radio, instead of TV and radio sets.
Why not? TVs are being taxed based on what they 'can' do - they can recieve BBC content. Even if you live in a remote area and can't actually recieve a BBC signal (say you use it to just watch DVDs and videos) you still have to pay a licence fee. Why should PCs (now that they 'can' get BBC content) be any different?
The connection is is that by 2017 it is possible most people will be watching TV content over the internet and not via the current TV broadcast system. And any PC of 2017 (assuming such a thing as a 'PC' still exists) will be capable of recieving content from the BBC and therefore the burden of the license should switch from the TV to the PC the same way it switched from the radio to the TV.
While they're at it, they might as well start putting an extra tax on mobile phones as well, as they're going to become content recieving devices in the near future.
Personally I think device tax is silly way to pay for a public service - it should come out of direct taxation instead. We don't have a special 'book tax' to support public libraries and I don't see why TV should be any different.
There's nothing in the charter that talks about providing "alternatives" in the sense that you mean
Which is why the BBC will always be stuck between a rock and a hard place. How do you justify spending money on 'populist' programmes when the commercial broadcasters do this just fine and without any public money and at the same time justify spending public money on shows few people want to watch?
What needs to be decided is what is the role of the BBC in the modern world. You could argue that commercial broadcasters are capable of doing the informing and entertaining and it's really only educational programmes that now fall under a 'public service' remitt. And if it's remitt is to be scaled down, than the corporation itself could probably be scaled down. Potentially you could even eliminate it by giving grants to the main commercial broadcasters to show commercial free educational programming.
There's no, point talking about the social injustice of the TV licence when nearly all indirect taxation is similarly regressive, and levied at a whopping 17.5+% to boot.
VAT is only regressive when it's levied on items that everybody needs in the same amount. As the amount that most people spend is proportional to thier income, the theory is that the rich will pay more, simply because they spend more.
Personally I think VAT, besides being outrageously high, is also a very ineffecient way of collecting what is effectively an income tax (assuming the theory behind why VAT is a 'fair' tax is correct). Of course I don't think any political party would be for abolishing VAT and raising income tax by an equivalent amount. And it's not like the EU would allow that to happen anyway.
It's as much a tax as Road Tax is. If you don't own a car you don't have to pay Road Tax, if you do own a car you pretty much have to pay Road Tax. It why the 'vehicle license' is commonly reffered to (even by the DVLA) as the 'Tax Disc'
At least with Road Tax, if you own a car but don't use it you can jump through some beuracratic hoops and not have to pay it, with the TV license you have to pay if you own TV, wheter or not you ever turn the thing on.
The government are taking money from the public in order to pay for a public service. That is called taxation. Not everyone has to pay, but then not every one has to pay Road, Income or Council tax either.
It's perfectly possible to buy a TV (say, to use in a training room at work) without a TV license.
Of course when you buy that TV they take your details down (though if you buy a TV from Tesco and have a clubcard they just send your clubcard details). If you think you get enough threating letters from TVL when you haven't bought a TV, what do you think they're going to do when they know that you've bought a TV and not bought a license?
Last time I checked the British government is elected by the citizens of Britain
Except the House of Lords and the Queen.
Of course, the House of Commons can send new Lords to the House of Lords to override opposition there and technically the Queen has to sign any legislation that gets passed by Parliament (I think the world comes to an end or something equally dramatic happens if she doesnt:-) so you kind of have to wonder what added value they bring to government.
Personally, I believe a form of licence fee is the only way to avoid wholesale chasing of ratings.
I would argue that it's the public funding of the BBC that's the main factor in getting the BBC back to creating high quality programmes and not the mechanism that is used to collect the funding, which is currently the license fee.
The BBC keeps trying to equate the license fee with high quality programming as the License fee suits the BBC's interest more than other forms of public funding, such as coming straight out of the culture ministry's budget. If anything, the License fee makes it easier for the BBC to chase ratings - it's a lot easier justifying spending a lot of money on football when the money comes from a pool specifically for television - it would be a lot harder to justify when it's coming out of the same pool that youth sports club get thier funding from.
Use the rail? Lets see, you make twice as much as the next guy, so we are going to charge you twice as much. Car taxes, lets see, you and him both drive the same car, yet you make twice as much, so lets tax you twice as much. See the problem?
You could argue that the less well off should have easier access to public transport - look at London where a single bus trip (even a short hop to, say, the jobcentre plus) is 1.20 - it's gotten to the point where it can be cheaper to take a car. And rail, like busses is public transport so I can't say that I can see any reason in principle why the less well off shouldn't be given some form of assitence for taking public transport now that it is becoming ridiculously expensive.
As for car taxes - it's like VAT, if somebody makes twice as much as I do they probably:
a) paid more for it (hence more VAT and all the other taxes that come from buying a car)
b) it's likely to have a larger engine so they will pay more in road tax
c) and that large engine is going to use more petrol, so more in petrol tax.
So it is more socially fair than the license fee is. Now I know you said somebody earning twice as much driving the same car, but how often is that going to happen? You don't see many city high flyers driving about in clapped out old metros do you? If somebody who earns twice what I earn is driving around in a 1970 Mini clubman, with no road tax (as it's exempt) and far less fuel costs than my car, well good for them but those people are few and far between.
because of they way they are funded they can offer programs that would otherwise probably not get made
This is the sort of thing the BBC's propaganda arm want you to believe about the license fee - that it is some 'unique' form of funding and is the only way that the BBC can make 'quality' programmes.
The BBC is publicly funded and it doesn't matter what taxation mechanism is used collect the funds as the underlying source of funds (ie the British taxpayer) is the same. The thing is, with it's own special tax the BBC doesn't have worry about competing for funding with other worthy public services such as libraries and museums. That what's so 'special' about the licence fee.
It really shouldn't matter to the BBC what mechanism the government uses to provide it's funding except that the license fee makes it easier to justify the amount spent, because it's funding is drawn from a pool specifically collected for it. If it had to get it's funding from the same pool as all other cultural public services then it would be harder for it to justify some of it's spending. Things like the bidding wars for football would be harder to justify when the money could be put into youth sports facilities instead.
Which why we know have organized crime turning from drugs and prostitution to running cigarettes and alcohol across the channel.
And while I'm doing a tour of my local housing estate for Sky dishes, you take a tour of your nearest women's prison and see how many of the inmates are in there for license fee evasion.
DOn't forget though, you get to watch AD FREE tv -That's gotta be worth the license fee surely.
But you have no choice to pay. If you don't mind commercials you still have to pay for the BBC whether or not you want to watch it.
Even worse is that are people who really can not afford the 104 a year for ad free TV. Should they be excluded from watching public service TV because they're too poor to pay the fee?
If you're getting BBC 1 & 2 outside the UK then whatever money you are paying for it does not go to the BBC. The money is just going to your cable company. The BBC doesn't have the IP rights to broadcast all it's programmes outside the UK, so they'd be breaking their contracts with programme producers if they recieved money from people outside the UK to recieve the broadcasts - even on the the programmes it owns outright it would prefer to sell the rights on to a Belgian broadcaster.
If anything, the fact that you can recieve 1 & 2 will mean that the BBC is likely to recieve less funds - ie it will be harder for the BBC to market it's programmes in Belgium if everybody's already seen them on what is suppossed to be the UK's domestic service.
No, I didn't forget about council tax- if anything it is the closest tax to the license fee. Differences between the coucil tax and license fee:
1)It is meant to take in to account a household's finacial status - ie it is banded by house prices, the idea being that poorer people will be in less expensive housing and thus be in a lower band. No, it's not the the fairest way of doing tax (I agree with the LibDems on this one) but it's better than the TV license equivalent of a single band.
2) Single person's discount - if there're only a single person above the age of 18 they get a 25% discount - personaly I think it should be closer to 50, but still there is at least some attempt to recoginze that a single person living in thier is probably going to use fewer council services than a family of five. With the TV license, one person with one TV pays the same as a five person household with six TVs.
3)The less well off don't have to pay. Where's the TV License equivalent of the council tax benefit?
But the BBC's funding isn't particularly unique. It's a public service, just like schools, libraries and the NHS are and just like those services it's paid for out of a taxation mechanism.
The only thing 'unique' about the BBC's taxation mechanism is that, for the most part, it is socially unjust - ie, the tax is the same no matter what a household's level of income is. It is the same as having just a single council tax band or a flat fee for 'national insurance'.
The TV license fee is similar to making every household pay 5000 pounds a year for the NHS, no matter how many people are in a household or what the level of income for that household is - and if you can't afford to pay the 5000 a year that's ok - but you can't access ANY health service, even a free private one paid for by a sponsor.
It's also the only tax which doesn't take into account people's finacial status. Rich or poor, everybody has to pay the same rate. OK, people over 75 may not have to pay, but some of them are in better financial positions than many people who are under 75.
I see a lot of people who state that the 100 odd pound for the BBC is better value than the 300 for Sky - which is true if you can afford the license fee, but there are many people who would be better off if they didn't.
The TV License fee seems to be the only tax that increases social exclusion.
Not if you're an unemployed single mum. My problem with the license fee is that it's socially unfair - it's like having a single council tax band or just one rate of income tax.
Every other public service is paid for by taxation systems that try to be 'socially just' - only public service television is paid for in a manner that penalizes the poor.
I would think it would be about as effective (and less likely to land people in jail) if, instead of attacking random strangers, a form of 'street theather' where it just looks like random people are getting beat up. The attackers could be either emblazoned with the company/product logo (imagine a man being kicked in the balls by someone wearing a big blue viagra suit) and the victims paid stunt men. In the case of companies where the employees wear uniforms you could have 'gangs' of employees roaming about. Imagine a Burger King Vs McDonalds 'turf way' with people shouting 'You Lovin' It now punk?'
Have you installed the adblock extension? I'm using Mozilla 1.7 (Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040616) and nothing pops up at all when I go to spacedaily. However I do have adblock installed, so that might be why.
Slashdot Mirror
The games i play on my computer have nothing to do with TV that BBC broadcasts.
And many people don't watch BBC content on their TVs.
The point is is that since BBC content is available on PCs, PCs should be taxed in the way TVs are now - especially by 2016 when it's possible that most people will be using their PC's for viewing TV and listening to radio, instead of TV and radio sets.
PCs can't be taxed for what they "could" do
Why not? TVs are being taxed based on what they 'can' do - they can recieve BBC content. Even if you live in a remote area and can't actually recieve a BBC signal (say you use it to just watch DVDs and videos) you still have to pay a licence fee. Why should PCs (now that they 'can' get BBC content) be any different?
The connection is is that by 2017 it is possible most people will be watching TV content over the internet and not via the current TV broadcast system. And any PC of 2017 (assuming such a thing as a 'PC' still exists) will be capable of recieving content from the BBC and therefore the burden of the license should switch from the TV to the PC the same way it switched from the radio to the TV.
While they're at it, they might as well start putting an extra tax on mobile phones as well, as they're going to become content recieving devices in the near future.
Personally I think device tax is silly way to pay for a public service - it should come out of direct taxation instead. We don't have a special 'book tax' to support public libraries and I don't see why TV should be any different.
If it's not publicly listed then how do people get into the community?
There's nothing in the charter that talks about providing "alternatives" in the sense that you mean
Which is why the BBC will always be stuck between a rock and a hard place. How do you justify spending money on 'populist' programmes when the commercial broadcasters do this just fine and without any public money and at the same time justify spending public money on shows few people want to watch?
What needs to be decided is what is the role of the BBC in the modern world. You could argue that commercial broadcasters are capable of doing the informing and entertaining and it's really only educational programmes that now fall under a 'public service' remitt. And if it's remitt is to be scaled down, than the corporation itself could probably be scaled down. Potentially you could even eliminate it by giving grants to the main commercial broadcasters to show commercial free educational programming.
There's no, point talking about the social injustice of the TV licence when nearly all indirect taxation is similarly regressive, and levied at a whopping 17.5+% to boot.
VAT is only regressive when it's levied on items that everybody needs in the same amount. As the amount that most people spend is proportional to thier income, the theory is that the rich will pay more, simply because they spend more.
Personally I think VAT, besides being outrageously high, is also a very ineffecient way of collecting what is effectively an income tax (assuming the theory behind why VAT is a 'fair' tax is correct). Of course I don't think any political party would be for abolishing VAT and raising income tax by an equivalent amount. And it's not like the EU would allow that to happen anyway.
It's as much a tax as Road Tax is. If you don't own a car you don't have to pay Road Tax, if you do own a car you pretty much have to pay Road Tax. It why the 'vehicle license' is commonly reffered to (even by the DVLA) as the 'Tax Disc'
At least with Road Tax, if you own a car but don't use it you can jump through some beuracratic hoops and not have to pay it, with the TV license you have to pay if you own TV, wheter or not you ever turn the thing on.
The government are taking money from the public in order to pay for a public service. That is called taxation. Not everyone has to pay, but then not every one has to pay Road, Income or Council tax either.
It's also the case that the majority of the British Public are in favour of the licence fee, except perhaps loudmouthed whingers like yourself.
You obviously don't read The Telegraph
The majority of the British Public are against the licence fee, except perhaps loudmouth BBC fanboys like yourself.
It's perfectly possible to buy a TV (say, to use in a training room at work) without a TV license.
Of course when you buy that TV they take your details down (though if you buy a TV from Tesco and have a clubcard they just send your clubcard details). If you think you get enough threating letters from TVL when you haven't bought a TV, what do you think they're going to do when they know that you've bought a TV and not bought a license?
Last time I checked the British government is elected by the citizens of Britain
Except the House of Lords and the Queen.
Of course, the House of Commons can send new Lords to the House of Lords to override opposition there and technically the Queen has to sign any legislation that gets passed by Parliament (I think the world comes to an end or something equally dramatic happens if she doesnt
Personally, I believe a form of licence fee is the only way to avoid wholesale chasing of ratings.
I would argue that it's the public funding of the BBC that's the main factor in getting the BBC back to creating high quality programmes and not the mechanism that is used to collect the funding, which is currently the license fee.
The BBC keeps trying to equate the license fee with high quality programming as the License fee suits the BBC's interest more than other forms of public funding, such as coming straight out of the culture ministry's budget. If anything, the License fee makes it easier for the BBC to chase ratings - it's a lot easier justifying spending a lot of money on football when the money comes from a pool specifically for television - it would be a lot harder to justify when it's coming out of the same pool that youth sports club get thier funding from.
Use the rail? Lets see, you make twice as much as the next guy, so we are going to charge you twice as much. Car taxes, lets see, you and him both drive the same car, yet you make twice as much, so lets tax you twice as much. See the problem?
You could argue that the less well off should have easier access to public transport - look at London where a single bus trip (even a short hop to, say, the jobcentre plus) is 1.20 - it's gotten to the point where it can be cheaper to take a car. And rail, like busses is public transport so I can't say that I can see any reason in principle why the less well off shouldn't be given some form of assitence for taking public transport now that it is becoming ridiculously expensive.
As for car taxes - it's like VAT, if somebody makes twice as much as I do they probably:
a) paid more for it (hence more VAT and all the other taxes that come from buying a car)
b) it's likely to have a larger engine so they will pay more in road tax
c) and that large engine is going to use more petrol, so more in petrol tax.
So it is more socially fair than the license fee is. Now I know you said somebody earning twice as much driving the same car, but how often is that going to happen? You don't see many city high flyers driving about in clapped out old metros do you? If somebody who earns twice what I earn is driving around in a 1970 Mini clubman, with no road tax (as it's exempt) and far less fuel costs than my car, well good for them but those people are few and far between.
because of they way they are funded they can offer programs that would otherwise probably not get made
This is the sort of thing the BBC's propaganda arm want you to believe about the license fee - that it is some 'unique' form of funding and is the only way that the BBC can make 'quality' programmes.
The BBC is publicly funded and it doesn't matter what taxation mechanism is used collect the funds as the underlying source of funds (ie the British taxpayer) is the same. The thing is, with it's own special tax the BBC doesn't have worry about competing for funding with other worthy public services such as libraries and museums. That what's so 'special' about the licence fee.
It really shouldn't matter to the BBC what mechanism the government uses to provide it's funding except that the license fee makes it easier to justify the amount spent, because it's funding is drawn from a pool specifically collected for it. If it had to get it's funding from the same pool as all other cultural public services then it would be harder for it to justify some of it's spending. Things like the bidding wars for football would be harder to justify when the money could be put into youth sports facilities instead.
How much do you pay for sky and still have adverts and biased news?
And what's the fine or jail term for not subscribeing to sky?
Complain all you like about the quality of Sky, but at least nobody forces you to pay for it if all you want to watch is free commercial TV.
..blow on fag booze and petrol taxes.
Which why we know have organized crime turning from drugs and prostitution to running cigarettes and alcohol across the channel.
And while I'm doing a tour of my local housing estate for Sky dishes, you take a tour of your nearest women's prison and see how many of the inmates are in there for license fee evasion.
DOn't forget though, you get to watch AD FREE tv -That's gotta be worth the license fee surely.
But you have no choice to pay. If you don't mind commercials you still have to pay for the BBC whether or not you want to watch it.
Even worse is that are people who really can not afford the 104 a year for ad free TV. Should they be excluded from watching public service TV because they're too poor to pay the fee?
If you're getting BBC 1 & 2 outside the UK then whatever money you are paying for it does not go to the BBC. The money is just going to your cable company. The BBC doesn't have the IP rights to broadcast all it's programmes outside the UK, so they'd be breaking their contracts with programme producers if they recieved money from people outside the UK to recieve the broadcasts - even on the the programmes it owns outright it would prefer to sell the rights on to a Belgian broadcaster.
If anything, the fact that you can recieve 1 & 2 will mean that the BBC is likely to recieve less funds - ie it will be harder for the BBC to market it's programmes in Belgium if everybody's already seen them on what is suppossed to be the UK's domestic service.
Erm did you forget about council tax?
No, I didn't forget about council tax- if anything it is the closest tax to the license fee. Differences between the coucil tax and license fee:
1)It is meant to take in to account a household's finacial status - ie it is banded by house prices, the idea being that poorer people will be in less expensive housing and thus be in a lower band. No, it's not the the fairest way of doing tax (I agree with the LibDems on this one) but it's better than the TV license equivalent of a single band.
2) Single person's discount - if there're only a single person above the age of 18 they get a 25% discount - personaly I think it should be closer to 50, but still there is at least some attempt to recoginze that a single person living in thier is probably going to use fewer council services than a family of five. With the TV license, one person with one TV pays the same as a five person household with six TVs.
3)The less well off don't have to pay. Where's the TV License equivalent of the council tax benefit?
the BBC's unique funding
But the BBC's funding isn't particularly unique. It's a public service, just like schools, libraries and the NHS are and just like those services it's paid for out of a taxation mechanism.
The only thing 'unique' about the BBC's taxation mechanism is that, for the most part, it is socially unjust - ie, the tax is the same no matter what a household's level of income is. It is the same as having just a single council tax band or a flat fee for 'national insurance'.
The TV license fee is similar to making every household pay 5000 pounds a year for the NHS, no matter how many people are in a household or what the level of income for that household is - and if you can't afford to pay the 5000 a year that's ok - but you can't access ANY health service, even a free private one paid for by a sponsor.
Perhaps they could do some kind of Changing Rooms-style makeover show where they are given a week and £1000 to revamp the BBC
You could even get Alan Sugar to hire and fire the new executive (on behalf of the the new Trust).
The BBC is free
As in speech, yes. As in beer, no.
It's also the only tax which doesn't take into account people's finacial status. Rich or poor, everybody has to pay the same rate. OK, people over 75 may not have to pay, but some of them are in better financial positions than many people who are under 75.
I see a lot of people who state that the 100 odd pound for the BBC is better value than the 300 for Sky - which is true if you can afford the license fee, but there are many people who would be better off if they didn't.
The TV License fee seems to be the only tax that increases social exclusion.
£120 a year is *phenomenal* value for money.
Not if you're an unemployed single mum. My problem with the license fee is that it's socially unfair - it's like having a single council tax band or just one rate of income tax.
Every other public service is paid for by taxation systems that try to be 'socially just' - only public service television is paid for in a manner that penalizes the poor.
I would think it would be about as effective (and less likely to land people in jail) if, instead of attacking random strangers, a form of 'street theather' where it just looks like random people are getting beat up. The attackers could be either emblazoned with the company/product logo (imagine a man being kicked in the balls by someone wearing a big blue viagra suit) and the victims paid stunt men. In the case of companies where the employees wear uniforms you could have 'gangs' of employees roaming about. Imagine a Burger King Vs McDonalds 'turf way' with people shouting 'You Lovin' It now punk?'
Tk
Have you installed the adblock extension? I'm using Mozilla 1.7 (Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040616) and nothing pops up at all when I go to spacedaily. However I do have adblock installed, so that might be why.