BBC Telly Tax petition given new Parliament debate date

Re: Telly Tax

all those endless ads for funeral plans, over 50's life assurance, that idot standing on the wing of a bi-plane and other such crap. They are almost enough to drive one to an early grave.

At least if you do head for an early grave, you can do so in the knowledge that you can pass on a financial legacy to your nearest-and-dearest, and have the funeral planned and paid for.

Re: Telly Tax

> commercial TV that has one poster already said, is peppered with adverts every 10 minutes

Try watching TV in the USA then... every 3 minutes it feels like.

I don't belieeeeeve it!

How prophetic Victor Meldrew was and is. Oh yes, that was the BBC too.

"To be honest, I'd be quite happy to scrap TV licensing and actually just tax TV purchases. Literally put a 10% import / sales tax on new TV's. Problem solved. "

Most TVs are around the £300 mark. So that's a tax of £30 for a TV that will last say 5 years.

Your Tax will raise £6 per year leaving a shortfall of about £141.

The Licence fee brings in £3.7billion per year.

There are about 27m TVs in the UK. If they last 5 years then the Tax per TV would have to be £685 per set. This could be a tax of 200% on the average TV. Combine that with the fact that people wouldn't then replace their TVs until they were kaput, and they'd also be a massive repair and secondhand market and you could easily see the 5 year renewal become 10 year or more.

You're now looking at a tax of perhaps £1,500 which would exacerbate the problem more and no-one could ever afford a new TV and everyone would just use a PC or buy them form Europe (While still in the free market).

So do you then Tax every PC as well? That'll go down well.

Re: @Lee D

Wise words, well put...and as such, probably f***-all chance of ever being put into legislation by any government.

@ Lee D

Why should you pay for schools if all your kids are grown up?....et al

Your examples are all essential services mostly provided or regulated by a monopoly provider. Independent provision exists in some of your examples but (as you well know) that isn't for the same universal, free at point of use service.

And that's why your argument is rubbish - the Beeb don't do anything that is or requires a natural monopoly, they provide regulation, they don't manage the transmission monopoly, and (no matter what you claim about the "quality" of the Beeb) there are independent broadcasters of good quality. And unlike those services that are tax funded, the Beeb is not free at point of use. You pay if you use the service, (along with a minority who don't use it, but are unfortunate enough to be caught in the scope of "owning and using a TV, or watching iPlayer"). But it is a selective tax - it can be legally avoided, unlike the unhypothecated taxes that go to (say) streetlighting or education, and so it isn't really "free at point of use".

@ Lee D

"Taxes are paid, a small amount by all"

Ho ho ho.

Last financial year I was taxed 35% from my salary alone. Total, not marginal (I include employers NI as well because, yes, that is a tax on the employee despite the name). Add on to that council tax, car tax, VAT and all the rest and it could well be in the 40-45% range or more. My salary was above average but only a bit above the 40% rate so hardly rolling in dough.

40-45% of a slightly above average earner's annual pay is not "a small amount".

RE: Lee D - tax on TVs

Putting tax on TV sets themselves would be interesting, given that once you reach a certain age you don't need to pay for the TV licence.

There'd need to be system in place whereby you can buy your telly tax-free if you show your pension book. Pensioners could start up a black market in selling on TVs that hadn't had telly tax paid at time of purchase

Taxes are paid, a small amount by all, to pay the large amounts for the few. That's how they work.

This is the real problem with the TV licence, it is perhaps the only form of taxation where currently all monies are collected independently of HMRC and are reinvested in TV services and specifically the BBC.

However, given the TV Licence is fundamentally a tax and government is in need of ways to increase revenue without increasing taxation. The question has to be whether the government really will abolish the TV Licence and allow the BBC to become funded by other means, or whether they will allow the BBC to be funded by other means, but retain the TV Licence revenues and bring the collection process in-house...