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Time to Abolish 'Windows Tax' Yet Again?
In England there is a tax on televisions which everyone must pay every year whether or not they have a television receiver. You could end up paying it even if you use a monitor for your computer!
     In Merrye Olde Englande TV Licencing has been a feature of life for as long as anyone can recall.  It's one of those things - like the now-repealed 'Windows Tax' -  which go to further corroborate the sheer greed and stupidity of our leaders.  Briefly, for the benefit of international subscribers, TV Licencing is an impost which everyone who has a television receiver in their home - whether it is in use or not - is compelled to pay.
     Not having a TV Licence is a criminal offence. Until fairly recently - and even now in certain circumstances - you could be imprisoned by a Magistrate for not owning a licence. Nowadays you can be hounded to the full extent of the law, as a last resort you can even be made bankrupt and have all your assets and belongings seized by bailiffs.
   The English government employs a fleet of 'detection vans' equipped with high-tech equipment for detecting TV signals and manned by  specially-trained TV police.  They cruise around the neighbourhoods, either randomly or in response to a tip-off, and knock at the door at any suspect premises. A database is kept of all addresses which have not been licenced to have a TV receiver and these addresses become prime targets.
     TV Licencing is a charge, usually paid annually in advance, of, at the time of writing, £131.50 and is hiked up further each year on some pretext or other. In practice it costs even more than that; grossed-up to take income tax into account it amounts to around £160 - that is to say, you have earn £160 in order to have the £131.50 available in your pocket. That works out at about US$200, I guess.
     Furthermore, the licence is payable even if you never watch TV! The mere fact that you have an (unused) television receiver in your home indicts you. A few years ago a 'class action' was started in the Courts by a group who never watched television but who watched videos. They lost their case. They still had to pay up - on the grounds that the licence was a levy on the television itself, not payment for watching television programmes. (Square that with the fact that the money is turned over to the BBC!)
     Now, what most people haven't yet realised is that - taking the Court ruling to its logical conclusion - licencing could apply equally to computer monitors! So you could effectively be taxed for browsing the Net!
     Originally, the licence was a means of funding the fledgling British Broadcasting Corporation. But nowadays the BBC doesn't need to money. Nowadays the BBC is virtually a massive autonomous empire with widespread commercial interests in America and elsewhere. The income of its publishing division alone is comparable to any of the international conglomerates.
     Let me make it clear that the BBC has in the main some excellent programme output and that its websites are second-to-none. But that is not what is at issue.
     The BBC is controlled by a 'Board of Governors'. Its members are political appointments, nominated by the government of the day. Members of the public are not allowed to vote on these appointments. This is a very exclusive gravy train.
     So now the BBC no longer needs the income from the licence and yet the licence persists because there are too many vested interests involved. Too many fingers in the pie, too many horses drinking at the trough.
     If straightforward abolition of the licence is too much for the powers-that-be to bear then I would suggest that it be replaced by a levy of, say 1%, on the TV industry itself, based on its advertising revenue.
(More about TV licences here at http://www.marmalade.net/lime/ )