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Please do not write below the line

(www.bbctvlicence.com)
313 points dcminter | 3 comments | 21 Oct 24 18:42 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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cooper_ganglia ◴[21 Oct 24 19:34 UTC] No.41907633[source]▶
A "TV License" is one of those things I alway assumed people were making up to satirize the claims of over-regulation & bureaucracy in the UK.

Finding out it was real was a mixture of hilarious and sobering.

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Zak ◴[21 Oct 24 19:38 UTC] No.41907684[source]▶
Many European countries are worse about it than the UK; even people who do not own a television are required by law to pay.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licence

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notatoad ◴[21 Oct 24 19:54 UTC] No.41907865[source]▶
that seems fine to me. whatever they want to call it, if it applies to everybody it's just a tax and they're using tax dollars to fund some TV content and/or infrastrcture. that's all totally normal.

the absurd part is restricting that tax to only people who watch TV, and trying to do surveillance and enforcement to determine whether or not somebody is eligible for a TV tax.

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1. immibis ◴[21 Oct 24 20:20 UTC] No.41908134[source]▶
Well, first they wanted to tax everyone a bit to pay for the BBC. And then someone said that would let the government easily pressure the BBC by withholding funds. And then someone said let's let the BBC collect it's own tax then. And someone else said that would be illegal to make people pay for the BBC if they aren't actually receiving any services from the BBC. And so here we are. So they wrote in this provision that in practice exempts precisely zero people but everyone tries to chase after anyway, contorting themselves through hoops to make it apply.

"Any services from the BBC" means any. TV broadcast, radio broadcast, or internet streaming. And because the actual intention was to make everyone pay, the law is written so you have to pay if you could receive one. If you have a computer and the Internet, you could receive internet streaming.

And then you have more stupid rules, like even though they're collecting a tax, they're not tax collectors so they don't have any authority to come into your house, so they invent weird ways to detect if you have a TV or not.

Presumably a left wing government would remove all this stuff and just make it a tax.

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2. Retr0id ◴[21 Oct 24 20:32 UTC] No.41908251[source]▶
This isn't accurate, that's just what they want people to think. In practice it exempts most people below the age of about 30, most of whom do not consume any media within the scope of the TV license.

> the law is written so you have to pay if you could receive one.

That's not true. You're allowed to own equipment capable of receiving licensed broadcasts, all that matters is that you don't.

3. wizzwizz4 ◴[21 Oct 24 20:35 UTC] No.41908274[source]▶
> the law is written so you have to pay if you could receive one. If you have a computer and the Internet, you could receive internet streaming.

That's not true, according to https://www.gov.uk/find-licences/tv-licence.

> You do not need a TV Licence to watch:

> • streaming services like Netflix and Disney Plus

> • on-demand TV through services like All 4 and Amazon Prime Video

> • videos on websites like YouTube

> • videos or DVDs