Swedish Organisation Demand PC Tax

[GhostShip]

I couldnt believe this myself, after all its not even april the first yet  :shock:

http://www.thelocal.se/10574/20080318/

Sweden's television licensing agency Radiotjänst is preparing to push through measures requiring computer owners to pay the annual television license fee of around 2,000 kronor ($327).

The move comes just days after Sveriges Television (SVT) announced plans to begin broadcasting all its programmes live on the internet.

"It is our interpretation that a computer may be considered a licensable piece of equipment if an entire channel's scheduled programming is available over the internet," said Anna Pettersson, CEO of Radiotjänst.
Since Sweden's public service broadcasting laws are "technology neutral", a computer will incur the same licence costs as a television if the same service is available on both.

People who have already paid their TV licence fee -- some 90 percent of Swedish households -- will not be required to pay extra for their computers.
But the move could affect many students, who for financial reasons may have a computer with an internet connection but no television.

Let us hope this selfish and short sighted idiocy loses ground and is dismissed out of hand as unworkable.

[Trestor]

The whole premise of Radiotjänst's plan to have Swedes pay for a television license for their computers appears to be built upon this dazzling display of illogic: 1) Televisions receive television shows, 2) those shows are going to be conveyed via the Internet, therefore 3) people should have to pay Radiotjänst to receive those shows on the Internet.

Radiotjänst contributes exactly what to this process to deserve receiving a revenue?

Based upon the comments of Anna Pettersson, the desire to license computers appears to be built upon two false beliefs:
1. A person should have a license to view a television show
2. The delivery of a television show, by any means, must be licensed.

As I understand it, this is wrong. Television licenses exist, not for the watching or receiving of television shows, but to pay for the use of the part of the Electro-Magnetic Spectrum which is used for broadcasting.

If the television stations want to deliver their shows via the Internet then it is difficult to see that it is any of Radiotjänst's business.

The television license should not apply to computers because they are not televisions and the Internet is not delivered using the E.M. Spectrum. On the contrary, the Internet is delivered via telephone and pay TV cables which are paid for by subscription.

[MinersLantern]

that kind of television law shouldnt even apply to television, let the tv broadcasters pay the silly tax.

[White Stripes]

wtf is the deal with these TV taxes in the first place (this is coming from someone in the usa) if the government decided it wanted to tax me for owning a TV (which is primarily used for watching DVDs) they would have a hell of a time figuring out that i even owned one....

[Trestor]

Wikipedia gives some useful information about television licenses, the first paragraph describing the concept.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_license#Australia

According to this, my original assertion appears to have been wrong: ie, that the use of the EM spectrum is taxed. Instead, 'Pedia says that the purpose of the tax was to fund public broadcasting without dipping into general taxation revenue or using sponsors or advertisers. However, this makes my argument stronger as the tax exists in Sweden only for the funding of the public broadcaster, and nothing else.

In relation to Sweden 'Pedia says this:
'The current licence fee (Swedish: TV-avgift, literally TV fee) in Sweden is 1968 kr[18](about €210) per annum. It is collected on behalf of the three public broadcasters (Sveriges Television, Sveriges Radio and Sveriges Utbildningsradio) by Radiotjänst i Kiruna AB, which is jointly owned by them.

The fee pays for five TV channels and 16 radio channels. In Sweden, the term "television licence" was replaced a few years ago by "television fee", which was regarded as less ambiguous. The fee is leveraged based per household with TV service, not per TV set.'



Now, Sveriges Television is a public broadcaster and is funded by the TV license in Sweden. Radiotjänst is owned by Sveriges Television and exists for the purpose of the collection of the TV tax.

The imposition of a tax on computers is based upon the notion that if Sveriges Television supplies TV via the internet then computers become de facto television receivers, which is untrue.

The reason this is untrue is that when TV sets were first introduced their only purpose was to make it possible to watch television. When video tapes and then DVD's came along it became that televisions were not exclusively receivers, and that you could own a TV to watch DVD's only and never watch broadcasts at all. Even more so, the fact is that computers pre-existed the streaming of TV via the internet, and that computers have many other purposes other than to watch Sveriges Television, then computers are even less broadcast receivers than televisions are. Therefore, it cannot be reasonably argued that computers in Sweden should be taxed just because Sveriges Television has decided to stream its programming, or that Radiotjänst has seen a revenue opportunity. Many people will not watch Sveriges Television on their computers, so to tax people just because they could is an immoral tax.

Even if Radiotjänst were right that watching Sveriges Television via the internet should be taxable, then Radiotjänst should be obliged to prove that a person is watching and are not paying the tax before they could charge for the viewing of Sveriges Television programming; after all, their charter isn't to tax people for having televisions but to tax people for watching Sveriges Television, and that alone.

Because of this, Radiotjänst should have no authority to tax computer users at all. Swedes have a reputation of being practical people; I hope they show their government and Radiotjänst just how practical they can be.