h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It's a regressive tax, because it hits the poorest people hardest. It ought to be related to the cost of your TV, so someone with a tiny ten quid box pays less than someone with a widescreen monster. Or, since almost everyone owns a TV nowadays, why not just take it out of income tax?

I agree (see other thread). One of the reasons the BBC isn't funded like this though is that the license feee makes it a bit more independant from the government (it can't look like state propaganda). This might be a bit cynical though as the government do appoint people to be in charge of the Beeb.

Still, it could be part of the income tax without being too connected to the government.

IMO the income tax just be adjusted too. At the moment there's a cap on the maximum you can pay (??). The percetage you pay should go up massively the more you earn (equalling out peoples wages a lot more).

You're thinking of National Insurance, which now is 11% of the first part of your earnings, and only 1% thereafter. Another regressive tax, and it'd be merged with income tax proper if I had my way. Ahh well.

"It's quite simple - we've kept our commitment not to raise Income Tax - by putting up taxes on income!"

First off, I'm all for publicly funded media. I like the no adverts. Also, a lot of the more obscure programmes that appear on BBC 2 and the such like are the epitome of public service broadcasting. What sort of minority programming does ITV or Sky (Ah we have half an hour to spare lets chuck another Simpsons on) ever do?
Now, as to how to raise themoney, I prefer the licence fee. It is a ring fenced amount of money that goes direct to the Beeb with no outside interference. And you know you are paying it. While we can say at the moment that the extra one pence on Income Tax is going to the NHS, will all of it actually do so? And if it does now, will a future government divert it to something else, paying off debt, re-arming in event of war, tax breaks else where in time for an election? Its much harder to do this with a seperate, split off collection and pot of money like the licence. As to whither it should be rated according to your income, hmm, I'll need to think on that one.

Relating the licence fee to the cost of your TV seems quite a good idea, it would discourage irresponsible consumerism. I guess it would just be difficult to put into practice.

The licence fee does seem to work, the bbc still provides some of the best television in the world. What commercial station would come up with bbc parliament?

What happens if you buy a second hand TV?

I like the idea of a one-time tax paid when you buy a TV, for example 5% on top of the price. This way big spenders end up paying more, so it's not a regressive tax. Second hand TV's would escape this tax, but really not many people want second hand tv's anyway since they're unreliable so the government would not lose out.

On the other hand I quite like the tv license. I have lived in North America for a couple of years and really missed Radio 4, which is the kind of station that could not survive over there. The license fee is fairly negligible, the price of a couple of movie rentals a month. Compare Sky TV at 37 quid a month for all the channels; what you get for the license fee compare quite well with that.

A 5% tax on new TVs wouldn't raise nearly as much as the licence fee, it would need to be much higher, so then everyone would simply buy their TVs abroad.

I don't own a licence or TV at the moment (I figure with the amount of free time I have it's cheaper to go to the cinema) but I do appreciate radio 3,4 and BBC websites.

I'd argue that second hand TVs *are* reliable!

I bought one 4-5 years ago, and it's still running!

I'd argue that second hand TVs *are* reliable!

I bought one 4-5 years ago, and it's still running!

I'd argue that second hand TVs *are* reliable!

I bought one 4-5 years ago, and it's still running!

I'd argue that second hand TVs *are* reliable!

I bought one 4-5 years ago, and it's still running!

Argh, sorry about all the posts.

What happened?

The page kept timing out (or the Opera version of time outs, which is a window asking me if I want to save the forum). On another forum that kept timing out, the post was not posting (I made a point of checking), so I assumed that it wasn't on this forum either.

there goes my clean record, in a big way.

Yes you're right that there's no reason why second tv's should be any more unreliable. I only just bought my first new tv a couple of years ago after about 8 years of second hand.

I wonder how much money the license fee brings in this year for the bbc, from that we could work out how many tv's you'd have to sell to make up the balance.

According to the BBC financial accounts - available online http://www.bbc.co.uk/info/report2001/report/pdf/annual_report_62_79.pdf - last year they got (£ million) 2370.8. I'm not really sure how many 0s to stick on the end of that, but I'm guessing that we're looking at a figure of £2,370,800,000. I don't think the country sells that many tellys a year.

(£ million) 2370.8

is 2,380,800,000

that sounds very high since the license fee is 112 ukp so that means more than 21 million people buy a license (more than 1 in 3).

ok lets accept that for now.

so a tv costs on average about 200 quid you would need to sell 238 million tv's at 5%. wow, I don't think that would work

how do people feel about the price of the license? sky digital costs 444 ukp a year for hundreds of channels, so shouldn't the bbc be more competetive considering they have such a large and captive audience?

I think it is competitive - how many of those hundreds of channels are actually watched?

Firstly I would like to say that TV licences are brilliant. The way the BBC is funded is great, and I love the fact that there are no adverts between programmes. A 40 minute episode of Star Trek on BBC lasts 1 horu on Sky. Enough said there.

We end up paying for it ourselves through adverts (we pay the companies to advertise in the first place) so leave the licence fee alone!!

But charge the rich more. Thank you.