The UK government is making proposals to tax computers, much like you pay a licence fee for your TV.
THE BBC licence fee should be replaced by a tax on the ownership of a personal computer instead of a television.
A legal loophole highlighted by the communications regulator Ofcom means that viewers could watch television and listen to radio over the internet and mobile devices free, potentially costing the BBC millions of pounds in licence fees.
This is because the BBC expect that consumers will be watching more and more programs on their PC, and therefore by-passing normal licence fees.
But don’t worry, this shouldn’t be introduced for a couple of years yet. The article over at Times Online mentions the government feels this doesn’t need to be introduced til late next deacade..
Comments
LordRich
Website
Saturday 5th March 2005
What’s the definition of a computer? Every single household has something computer-like, even if it’s just the computer in your washing machine. So do we just launch a blanket tax on everybody?
PCs can’t be detected like a TV can, you’d have to send people round tosearch houses regularly. Or you charge extra on new computers (so we build our own and stick to 2nd hand/upgrades), or charge extra at the ISP level (so we share our bandwidth, because by then 100Mbit is normal anyway) or trust people to pay (in which case we all refuse).