Abolition of licence fee?

[Tubby Isaacs]

I've never understood this, but why is the BBC said to be guaranteed independence by raising money through a flat tax on television ownership, rather than through a progressive taxation system? The government already sets the level of the licence fee and nominates the management. Does the Bank of England guarantee its independence by raising its own operating costs?

The costs of collecting the fee and prosecuting non payers must be pretty high. And won't people increasingly avoid it by watching online?

Yours confused.

[Seven Saxon Kings]

Abolition of licence fee?

Well I suppose the Government is theoretically (haha) more trustworthy than corporations to preserve its independence and integrity. Which is you compare it to, say, Fox News may be reasonably valid.

That doesn't explain why it's flat rather than progressive. Perhaps the extra cost of administering a progressive tax is disproportionate for a relatively small tax.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Abolition of licence fee?

I don't see why there has to be a separate tax for it at all, progressive or not. General taxation is fairly progressive. Can't it come from that? The reason it isn't Fox News is that it wouldn't be tolerated here, not that there's a licence fee. Even Sky News isn't Fox News.

I also don't understand the point of car tax. Can't this be collected when the car is bought new, or on petrol?

[Seven Saxon Kings]

Abolition of licence fee?

Well that's a bit of a different argument, which you could make about any indirect taxation. I suppose it's because TVs and cars are non-essential luxuries so the poorest shouldn't have to subsidise other people having them from general taxation. I know the reality now is that nearly every house has a TV but I suppose the tax's origins are in a time when that wasn't the case.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Abolition of licence fee?

There's a danger the poor could very well be subsidising the rich with TV now. Poor family watching a crap old TV- full fee. Rich bloke, state of the art PC, might well pay nothing and watch everything online.

Even people who don't have televisions benefit from public service broadcasting as properly understood, with investigations into corrupt politicians and all, and its general contribution to culture eg in breaking new music, especially on Radio 1 and 3. I don't see any reason to exempt them from paying.

I see in 2007-8, there were an estimated 3.5m visits to houses without licences. What an astonishing waste of money.

[Ginger Yellow]

Abolition of licence fee?

Does the Bank of England guarantee its independence by raising its own operating costs?

Well, the FSA does guarantee its fairly laughable independence by levying fees on the financial industry. Not sure where the Bank's funding comes from.

Anyway, I think the point with regards to the BBC is that the fee is set by the charter process, which gives a significant degree of stability year to year. The government can't punish or reward the Beeb by changing its budget from year to year, nor can it micromanage budget expenditures.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Abolition of licence fee?

The very epitome of the chavvy council estate house is the 49-inch flat screen telly plonked in a tiny lounge, bought for off the social. And two more upstairs in the kids' bedrooms. So it's not a tax about expensive TV "ownership" at all.

I'd wholeheartedly agree with a progressive tax to replace the TV licence, though, if it returned the BBC to the kind of programming becoming of those then "paying" for it. More "Walks With Wainwright", and "Coast", and far less One Show, Eastenders, Dancing on Fucking Roller Skates and Jonathan Ross.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Abolition of licence fee?

Whatever the method of setting it, surely that doesn't mean it has to be collected in the way it is.

Well, let's think of the judiciary, maybe a better example than the Bank. Indpendence is important there, but that must receive a fair bit of tax from direct taxation. The figures you see for court costs wouldn't cover it.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Abolition of licence fee?

Rogin the Armchair Fan wrote:

The very epitome of the chavvy council estate house is the 49-inch flat screen telly plonked in a tiny lounge, bought for off the social. And two more upstairs in the kids' bedrooms. So it's not a tax about expensive TV "ownership" at all.

I take it your joking there. I can't wait for your wizardry on the taxation thread if you can rustle up giant televisions from social security.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Abolition of licence fee?

In fact, after further thought, I think replacing the entire licence fee with the BBC having to raise funds through "vote now!" text message competitions should be the way forward. They must raise an absolute bloody fortune from these as it is, where does it all go? Even the politics show with Andrew Neill routinely invites its viewers to text in on the "issue of the day".

And Chris Moyles can get 600,000 texts of a morning just by asking "whose team are you on, Peter or Katie?". Let him raise the money needed for his own bloody programme.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Abolition of licence fee?

btw, GY, what's going on here if parliament can't directly cut the licence fee?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8058637.stm

[Ginger Yellow]

Abolition of licence fee?

Well, sure, in theory parliament can do it, just like it can in theory abolish the House of Lords. But as the story you linked to points out, freezing the fee would violate the terms of the long term settlement, which is an long-established structure. Doing so would clearly be seen as an attack on the independence of the BBC. As with so many things in a land with an unwritten constitution (and as we discovered under Bush, even in places with written constitutions), many things that are in theory forbidden depend on their occurrence being deemed outrageous to remain so.

[Wyatt Earp]

Abolition of licence fee?

The point about the licence fee is that, almost uniquely, it's a hypothecated revenue strand. If the Chancellor got to set the BBC's funding each budget, that's its editorial independence fucked.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Abolition of licence fee?

Sorry, I still don't see why long term guarantees of funding mean you have to have a hypothecated tax. Couldn't the next charter agree funding and not have the licence fee?

[Etienne]

Abolition of licence fee?

Yeah, I'm with Tubby here. In general I think hypothecated taxation is a bad idea, and I don't see why it's right for the BBC and not for anything else. It's horribly regressive, possibly more so than any other tax apart from on cigarettes. And it's an easy target for those who want to bash the BBC, which is a greater threat to its editorial independence than there being no independent revenue stream.

As long as there is an independent body set up to assign its budget (similar to the one that sets electoral constituency boundaries) I don't see any danger in the BBC losing the licence fee.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Abolition of licence fee?

You've as usual put it better than me.

Hypothecated taxes seem to me too a complete red herring. Why should the correct amount of tax to spend on something be equal to the best amount of tax to raise from it? That would be a happy coincidence indeed.