Here’s the difference between America and Europe. In the States, a TV tax would never fly. Instead, the government taxes the TV makers, the cable guys, the content providers, etc. Then they force the providers into including channels no one would ever watch like PBS or CNN. All of this shows up in the monthly bill. We like our taxes hidden so we can pretend to be free.
In Europe, they prefer their authoritarianism straight. In the UK, the man taxes you for TV service, regardless of your type of service. That tax goes to fund government agit-prop pumped out by the BBC. If you don’t pay the tax, they throw you in prison. That’s right. They don’t cut off the service. They throw you in jail. Over 10% of criminal cases are for failure to pay the TV tax.
The BBC is responsible for more than one in 10 criminal prosecutions. Culture Secretary Sajid Javid reports that 10% of magistrate court cases are for non-payment of the BBC licence fee. Non-payment is a criminal offence, punishable by a fine of up to £1,000. Every week about 3,000 people are fined for non-payment, and about one person a week is jailed for non-payment of the fine.
Women make up about 70% of those prosecuted and convicted, and half of those jailed for not paying the fine. When people fail to pay other utilities, such as energy companies, they are guilty of a civil offence, not a criminal one, and they cannot be prosecuted and fined for falling behind with their payments. Civil action can be taken for recovery, but without fines and jail terms.
Several newspapers have had reporters visit magistrate’s court to describe what goes on. They all tell harrowing stories of frightened, distressed people, mostly women, facing fines they cannot pay under threat of imprisonment if they do not. Many are single mothers, many on benefits. They have not paid the licence fee because they cannot afford to. The sum of £145.50 per year is huge for a young mother struggling to feed and clothe children. Many weep in court, unable to pay the fine for the same reason they couldn’t afford the licence fee; they don’t have the money.
Everyone with a TV, except the over 75s, has to pay, whether or not they watch BBC programmes. If people fail to pay for other services, such as a Sky subscription, for example, the service is withdrawn without them being taken to court and fined.
The reason for this, of course, is to make sure every citizen is getting their instructions. The BBC is about crowd control. TV serves the same purpose in the US, it’s just funded indirectly. Still, I can cut the cord and not pay anything. As an American, I will not be thrown in jail for not watching the agit-prop beamed over TV.
America! Yeah! We’re number one!
What a silly, wacky waste of resources and a shocking smashing of morale. Americans have their stupid tipping system to pay for their waitresses, the UK has its silly TV tax to pay for their propaganda. All the women who are being prosecuted for this silliness live in rental homes. The BBC tax should be included in the rent, or better still – done away with. In Australia, the ABC is funded by Federal Income Tax and is just as disgracefully lefty biased as the BBC. In Japan, NHK collectors knock on your doors twice a years requesting “donations” in not so subtle ways. My tip – do away with your TV.
Nobody but the poor souls mentioned in your post bother to pay as most people know the BBC people have no powers to enforce the law unless you volunteer the information.
“Culture Secretary Sajid Javid”
Whose culture?
Good stuff, Zman. The BBC licence scam was dreamed up in the early 1920s when people began to listen to the radio, and there was always lot of fear then about radio communications by spies and ‘Johnny Foreigner’ so it made sense for a licence to be needed to receive signals. TV came a dozen years later. Oddly, in the early days everyone appearing on British TV wore dinner jackets/tuxedos or evening gowns.
It also made sense as people needed all sorts of licences anyway, such as a dog licence (and giving rise to the joke that one’s marriage licence had expired so should I bother get another one?)
Back then radio was so looked down upon that some newspapers either refused to publish a listing of radio programs (which was anything but 24 hours a day) or relegated the listing to a minor back page of the paper. But what is interesting about the pursuit of the population by the BBC for its licence fee that they track even the sale of televisions in shops. If you buy a new TV you are given a ‘reminder’ of the dire consequences of not registering for a licence. Merely not watching BBC is not enough, especially as it is hard to prove, and worse the Beeb employs a private company to stalk members of the public over payment. Being a commercial enterprise dependent on commission, they are very keen to make sure everyone pays up.
The next argument will of course be over the internet. Al-Beeb has on the back of their huge income made a great investment in internet-delivery of their programs. Thus I can watch the highlights of my not-so-successful football team a week later if I can bear it, thanks to it being on tinterwebz. It follows then that they will want some sort of levy on ISPs for a share of the money.