161–170 of 562 posts
Why not just tax TV sales? That's much easier to enforce, and has ultimately almost the same effect.
Why not just tax TV sales? That's much easier to enforce, and has ultimately almost the same effect.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I firmly believe this, especially in recent times. Those mandatory fees finance the "public" radio and TV stations, which have a set budget and can freely operate within the budget. They are not depending on advertisement revenue (they have a limited amount of that too) and are not working to create a profit. As a consequence, they do have a certain degree of independence and overall can afford into a lot of good qua…
In my personal experience public funded TV stations are just a propaganda machine for the current ruling party.
Howerver I guess it depends on the country you're from.
What riles me up personally: the ludicrous sums of money that these broadcasters pay for rights to broadcast the olympics and other major sports events. I really don't understand why I should be forced to give money to corrupt organizations like FIFA and the IOC to hold sports events that I don't watch and otherwise don't have a stake in, just because I happen to live in Germany, to make this stuff more affordable for other Germans.
Another thing that I find infuriating about the German system: You have to pay even if you don't watch and don't even own a television and even non-residential addresses and addresses used solely for business purposes have to pay. The only exception is that a home office within a residential premise doesn't have to pay twice. But in some cases you might actually have to. For example if you have a residential home and run a car repair shop out of your garage, then you have to pay a second set of fees for the shop on top of the fees that you already pay for the residential home, even if there is no programming ever being consumed in either of the two.
I also find the collection tactics highly questionable: When you register your business, they send you an invoice for paying that second set of fees for the business and never advise you of the home office exemption. It was only because of how infuriated I was that I did some legal research and then managed to claim the exemption after exchanging some letters with them. I bet most people don't do that and just pay up, which adds to the unfairness of the system.
A bit off-topic maybe, sorry. I am not from the UK, but quite a large chunk of things I watch on YouTube are british panel shows. I'm just in love with them. Which seems funny to me, because as a non-uk twenty year old, I don't think that I'm the target demographic for these shows. "8 out of 9 cats does countdown", "Would I lie to you?" and of course my favourite, "Taskmaster". Thanks for all of these great shows. "B…
A bit off-topic maybe, sorry. I am not from the UK, but quite a large chunk of things I watch on YouTube are british panel shows. I'm just in love with them. Which seems funny to me, because as a non-uk twenty year old, I don't think that I'm the target demographic for these shows. "8 out of 9 cats does countdown", "Would I lie to you?" and of course my favourite, "Taskmaster". Thanks for all of these great shows. "B…
Jon Richardson's view on many things is realistic and hilarious at the same time.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> In Germany, the situation changed a few years ago, every household has to pay now, even if they don't own a television or radio. This was literally the first piece of mail I got when I moved to Germany: a letter demanding I pay for the TV networks I don't watch. I didn't even own a TV by that point, nor would have understood much of what was being said! A German explained to me once that the forced payment by non-w…
At that point, why don’t they just have the government fund the television networks from tax revenue rather than effectively levying a poll tax earmarked for broadcasters?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
'TV Light Simulators' are actually a thing: https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=tv+light+simulator&atb=v172...
Your point? If you're trying to avoid being suspected of having a tv, that sounds as smart as trying to rob a gun store with a fake weapon
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> In Germany, the situation changed a few years ago, every household has to pay now, even if they don't own a television or radio. This was literally the first piece of mail I got when I moved to Germany: a letter demanding I pay for the TV networks I don't watch. I didn't even own a TV by that point, nor would have understood much of what was being said! A German explained to me once that the forced payment by non-w…
At that point, why don’t they just have the government fund the television networks from tax revenue rather than effectively levying a poll tax earmarked for broadcasters?