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Please do not write below the line

(www.bbctvlicence.com)
313 points dcminter | 1 comments | 21 Oct 24 18:42 UTC | HN request time: 0.34s | 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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kamaitachi ◴[21 Oct 24 19:43 UTC] No.41907726[source]▶
It’s not just a U.K. thing. Many European countries have something similar, although it might be called something else.

It’s a form of tax that pays for public service broadcasting, including radio stations.

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

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1. looperhacks ◴[22 Oct 24 05:18 UTC] No.41911409[source]▶
Pedantry time! At least in Germany, the "Rundfunkbeitrag" is not a tax, but more like a fee. Taxes go into the overall budget of the collecting party who then uses a part of the budget to fund something. The broadcasting fee can only be used for the broadcasting system and does not go through the country's budget. This means to increase the broadcasting budget, the fee has to be increased and it can't be subsidized by increasing the budget without increasing the tax.