Again TV Tax

tamlinek

I'm not used to paying for something I don't use. I bought telly for gaming, not for watching tv. The estate is completely new, so an post started the manhunt I received the letter, that tv guy will be checking licenses. I'm not happy to pay for that, can I just tell him: no, I don't have tv and no, you cannot enter? Would be perfect

monument

They don't care what you say you're using it for...

Rules

If your household, business or institution possesses a television or equipment capable of receiving a television signal, you are required by law to have a television licence. Even if the television or other equipment is broken and currently unable to receive a signal, it is regarded as capable of being repaired so it can receive a signal and you must hold a licence for it....

http://oasis.gov.ie/public_utilities/telecommunications/tv_licences.html?search=TV+license

tamlinek

and if I stick with not letting them in and telling them, that I don't have any tv?

baguio

tamlinek wrote:

and if I stick with not letting them in and telling them, that I don't have any tv?

You dont have to let them in the first time - you can tell them to sod off. However, theres a big red line under your address after that and they will be coming back at some stage - posible with a warrant to enter. At which point you fecked if you've got anything that contains a tv tuner in the house.

Random

It's a ridiculous law. Completely stupid.

Wonder if I can contact my local TD via email .. wonder if that would make a difference...

jo.king

Guys, i may be very wrong here but...i was told by the post man when he delivered they latest forms for voting that i would be untraceable for a tv license if i did not fill out those forms and that it was better for me if i left my details with the family home - again i may be very wrong, but it could be something to look into?

Victor

tamlinek wrote:

and if I stick with not letting them in and telling them, that I don't have any tv?

They may get curious about the flickering blue light from your living room at night.

Karoma

Victor wrote:

They may get curious about the flickering blue light from your living room at night.

Play a "projector" or "kinky sex" excuse.

Random

What is the reasoning behind needing to pay a tv license regardless? That "you can" and therefore you should be charged?

Bull****. At the moment it's not me paying it, but when it is I'd like to know who to complain to!

monument

baguio wrote:

However, theres a big red line under your address after that and they will be coming back at some stage - posible with a warrant to enter. At which point you fecked if you've got anything that contains a tv tuner in the house.

At which point the bit about “or equipment capable of receiving a television signal” also kicks in and a ‘bunny ears’, PC TV card, or Sky box etc may all be counted.

ciaranfo wrote:

It's a ridiculous law. Completely stupid.

Not really. Maybe a little outdated. But there’s very few people who wouldn’t make use of the normal TV signal, or Sky, or cable.

ciaranfo wrote:

Wonder if I can contact my local TD via email .. wonder if that would make a difference...

Highly unlikely.

Karoma

It's as though people might lie about such things? Or, silly idea, actually use it to occasionally watch the bogchannels from time to time despite best intentions.

^It's not just a TV signal is it? It includes radio too (Or,at least,use to.) The vast majority of houses are bound to have either a radio or TV.

tamlinek

it seems that the best way is to play a guest - my host is not at home at the moment, I'm just taking care of it, or do not open at all, maybe he'll think, that nobody lives there. if he hasn't got any details from Ntl (they got mine from ESB - I know, because they repeated ESB's mistake in my second name:) - is it legal?), maybe they give up

I don't want to pay road tax or income tax. Wonder will they cancel them if I write a strongly worded letter?

Cover your head and the telly in tinfoil and their satellites can't detect either.

loyatemu

if you don't use the telly to actually watch TV, then get rid of it and buy a monitor with no tuner in it. You can still play games, watch DVDs etc but you're not liable for the license if you can't receive broadcast signals (or cable or satellite).

Idleater

loyatemu wrote:

if you don't use the telly to actually watch TV, then get rid of it and buy a monitor with no tuner in it. You can still play games, watch DVDs etc but you're not liable for the license if you can't receive broadcast signals (or cable or satellite).

Exactly.

Oh, and while they keep a "database" of those households that hold a tv licence, they normally reduce their search by 99% by inverting the search to all households that dont have a licence.

It is very easy to send out a couple of people to check 1 out of every 100 houses rather than having to knock on every door to see if they have a licence.

L.

godtabh

loyatemu wrote:

if you don't use the telly to actually watch TV, then get rid of it and buy a monitor with no tuner in it. You can still play games, watch DVDs etc but you're not liable for the license if you can't receive broadcast signals (or cable or satellite).

A monitor is capable of recieving tv signals via a pc so I'm not sure if this would work and am nearly certain this has come up before and some one said you still have to pay up

antoinolachtnai

Um, you know the government can't just go around kicking doors in. They have to have something called 'evidence'.

Have any of you guys actually read the wireless telegraphy acts?

Of course it is true that if you have apparatus capable of receiving television signals, you are supposed to have a television licence. If you don't like the principle, you should complain to your government TD and ask to have the legislation amended (not much chance of that).

blorg

You do not need a TV license for a monitor without tuner (unless of course you have a TV card in your PC.) You do not need a license for a radio.

Frankly, yes, you can just tell them that you don't have a TV, even if you do. I have _never_ heard of the inspectors getting a warrant; frankly that's ridiculous. In fact I have never even heard of them asking to come in if you just say you don't have a TV! Certainly they have not in my case.

Believe it or not some people do not watch broadcast TV in this day and age; frankly most of it is shíte and some can get on quite fine with DVDs and the internet, thank you very much.

randombloke

I got 'done' recently. This a***hole rang on my doorbell on a saturday morning and as I was just out of bed, i didn't have a good story ready. I reckon they are on commission.

Anyway, I reckon the best thing to say is that the house/apt is vacant, and you are an estate agent showing it...

antoinolachtnai

why did you feel you had to explain yourself on your own doorstep at a time that was inconvenient to you and with no notice?

blorg

Yeah, or you could just say that you don't have a TV. This works 100% of the time as long as your TV is not clearly visible to the inspector.

stepbar

The TV licence man called uninvited to my apt block last week. My bro was coming home from work and there he was waiting outside our apt door. What pisses me off is that someone let him in, if he had to have met me I would have escorted him off the premises and gave him the number of the property mgt company. But my brother proceeded to give him not only his name and admitted that there was a TV in the house. Silly boy will now have to fork out 155 for the licence himself :rolleyes:

ixoy

On a related note, why the hell does the license only run until the end of the preceding month the next year and not until one year on from the date you bought it on? This means that if you got a license on July 31st, it would be only valid until June the 30th of the following year - utterly ridiculous and there is NO excuse for it in this day of modern accounting.

bullrunner

ok..i can understand needing a license to drive a car...its so that they can regulate who can drive (and allegedly stop bad drivers)....but the whole TV license scheme is a form of double taxation on households....you already pay vat on the purchase of the tv, vat on the electricity used to run the tv and vat on the cable/satellite fees (or vat on buying the aerial to get a signal)....so by asking people to buy a license to be allowed to operate a device that can receive (not play...RECEIVE..so if your screen is broke byt the system can still receive the signal you still have to pay) television signals is just taking the mick!

End this license cr*p once and for all!!

<>RANT</>

Idleater

ixoy wrote:

utterly ridiculous and there is NO excuse for it in this day of modern accounting.

It is the exact same method of calculation as used in Motor Tax.

When the counting interval is based on "month" intervals, then what else do you expect.

I presume you would complain if it was a daily rate that if you got a licence at 23:59 on day x, it would run out at 00:00 365 days later, thus "do"ing you out of an entire day's licence.

The calculations are the same for everyone. Deal with it.


As for what is the licence fee used for?

rte.ie wrote:

What is the licence fee used for?
Licence fee revenue is used to fund RTÉ's public service activities. The cost of providing these services is however substantially in excess of the amount of public funding received in the form of licence fee revenue and for this reason RTÉ also engages in a number of commercial activities. Currently, approximately 50% of RTÉ's revenue is derived from licence fees and approximately 50% from commercial income. Some of RTÉ's public service activities receive complete public funding, some receive limited public funding and some receive no public funding. The chart below illustrates how licence fee revenue was distributed across RTÉ's public service activities during 2004.

L.

bullrunner

the use of this license fee to fund RTE is ridiculous. I know other channels are eligible for a cut of the fee if they fulfill certain criteria...but no for profit organisation is able to fulfill these criteria and stay in profit...this fee is just for the government to be able to pay for a bad service to be run.

dublinhead

If u are in an apartment block what are the chances of a Tv inspecter calling. And if he does, Is it simply a matter of not answering the door as I can see who is at the door via the video intercom?

Chocolate

tamlinek wrote:

it seems that the best way is to play a guest - my host is not at home at the moment, I'm just taking care of it, or do not open at all, maybe he'll think, that nobody lives there. if he hasn't got any details from Ntl (they got mine from ESB - I know, because they repeated ESB's mistake in my second name:) - is it legal?), maybe they give up

Tamlinek, that's interesting about the ESB. The same thing happened to me.

Last year, I moved into a house in a new housing estate. The foreman had suggested that I apply to ESB for connection before moving in as some people had experienced delays in being connected.

So about two weeks before I moved into the house, the ESB connected the electricity.

The day I collected the keys to the house, there was an addressed letter from An Post in my letterbox, stating that there was no record of a licence at this address. I wouldn't mind but I had a letter typed up and ready to send to them saying that I was transferring the licence from my old address to my new one. I was waiting til I had actually moved in before I was going to send it.

The interesting thing was, the ESB had made a mistake in the spelling of my name. The exact same mistake was on the name An Post used.

I contacted ESB to query this. They said under no circumstances do they supply customer information to a third party as it would be illegal to do so.

But how else would An Post have received my name and address? I hadn't even moved into the house?!

antoinolachtnai

An Post does have the right to access certain data (for example from NTL). Maybe they have a right to the ESB data, but it doesn't seem right to me.

Would you be willing to raise the matter with the data protection commissioner

Antoin (wearing his http://www.digitalrights.ie/ hat)

Capt'n Midnight

Technically you even need a TV license if you have a mobile phone capable of receiving TV signals.

An Post do have a database of all the letters they carry.
Did you get Cable TV ?

antoinolachtnai

An Post have a database of the letters they carry? Do you have any evidence of that? I know they can do it in principle.

Keeping a database of letters, particularly if it included the name of the addressee would be going way over the line.

Idleater

dublinhead wrote:

If u are in an apartment block what are the chances of a Tv inspecter calling. And if he does, Is it simply a matter of not answering the door as I can see who is at the door via the video intercom?

Like I posted above, it is surprisingly high.

Say there are T apartments in your complex and Y people have licences (these are registered addresses with An Post). Now, what they can do is they check if Y < T.

If it is, then they compile a short list of N which is simply T-Y and visit those addresses. They have proof that you don't have a licence, they simply require that you proove that you dont have a device capable if recieving Broadcast signals.

presuming that M out of N have nothing to hide and willingly show the inspector around that there is nothing there that warrents a licence that just leaves S number that require further investigation.

The names and addresses of these S number of people are collated and "black listed" and when permission (warrent/court order) has been sanctioned, they call back to the addresses and search them.

L.

loyatemu

there's no point complaining about the license being unfair because you don't watch RTE, or that its double taxation etc. It is a tax, and you do have to pay it.

the alternative is to fund RTE from general taxation which would be even more unfair as people with no TVs would then be paying for the service.

As for whether we are getting value for money from RTE, that's a different argument - two thirds of RTE's output is garbage and the organisation in general needs a good kicking. However TV3 gives us a good idea of what a wholly commercial alternative would be, and it ain't pretty.

blorg

nereid wrote:

Like I posted above, it is surprisingly high.

Say there are T apartments in your complex and Y people have licences (these are registered addresses with An Post). Now, what they can do is they check if Y < T.

If it is, then they compile a short list of N which is simply T-Y and visit those addresses. They have proof that you don't have a licence, they simply require that you proove that you dont have a device capable if recieving Broadcast signals.

presuming that M out of N have nothing to hide and willingly show the inspector around that there is nothing there that warrents a licence that just leaves S number that require further investigation.

The names and addresses of these S number of people are collated and "black listed" and when permission (warrent/court order) has been sanctioned, they call back to the addresses and search them.

L.

Sorry, that is absolute cráp. It is not up to you to "prove" that you don't have a TV, it is up to the inspectors to "prove" that you _do_ have a TV. The inspectors do _not_ in my experience ask to be shown around your home; they will take your word that you do not have a TV unless it is blindingly obvious (e.g. they can see it through the door/window.) Even if they did ask all you need to do is say "no."

As for search warrants being served on people without a TV license simply on the basis of their not having a license (with no evidence supplied that they do have a TV) that is simply laughable. Why would An Post spend pointless time and expense applying for such warrants that are only going to be denied by a court?

Even the letter that they send you says quite clearly "if you don't have a TV, please ignore this letter."

ixoy

nereid wrote:

It is the exact same method of calculation as used in Motor Tax.

When the counting interval is based on "month" intervals, then what else do you expect.

Why though? Why does it have to be so antiquated? Whats the point, other than making it easier for themselves?

I presume you would complain if it was a daily rate that if you got a licence at 23:59 on day x, it would run out at 00:00 365 days later, thus "do"ing you out of an entire day's licence.

I'm complaining about the fact that you could be done out of almost a whole month's worth of license due to their arrangement - which is far more significant. So why don't they deal with that??

Magic Pips

loyatemu wrote:

...However TV3 gives us a good idea of what a wholly commercial alternative would be, and it ain't pretty.

I think you'd find if RTE didn't have the funding of the TV lisense TV3 would be a completely different animal. You can't compete with the money and buying power that RTE benefit from.

Therefore TV3, for the large amount, get out bid for things by TV lisense money!

Capt'n Midnight

antoinolachtnai wrote:

An Post have a database of the letters they carry? Do you have any evidence of that? I know they can do it in principle.

Keeping a database of letters, particularly if it included the name of the addressee would be going way over the line.

They just keep the name and address that is visible on the envelope.

And oddly enough they actually have a valid reason to retain this information.

SparkyLarks

Personally I think the Licence fee is worth it for the sports coverage on RTE.
I can;t stand watching Sky, BBC is boring but the soccer, O'Heirlihy, Giles and dunphy or the Rugby McGurk Hook and Popey is brilliant.

that said the funding the licence doesn;t go to fund the sports as there is more than enough sponsorship and advertising.

However if ther is no public funding for television then we get crap like Sky.
no realing in the years,
there would be no Irish language programmes, imagine a without without Sharon Ni Beoilin. Male Leaving cert results in Irish would have taken a dip for sure

Public funding as far as I know is allocated to apecific programmes which are decided to be of importance though might not be of grater popular appeal.

If we remove a licence fee then it comes from general taxation, i.e. taxes will have to go up so we pay anyway. Or we get rid of public service broadcasting , personally I don;t think that's a good Idea.

BUT it is the law, so don't come just moan about it on boards and not pay/ Pay up like most deacent people and If you don't agree with the Licence fee then lobby your local TD's to get it changed.

Idleater

ixoy wrote:

Why though? Why does it have to be so antiquated? Whats the point, other than making it easier for themselves?


I'm complaining about the fact that you could be done out of almost a whole month's worth of license due to their arrangement - which is far more significant. So why don't they deal with that??

But what I am saying is that a method is chosen, and applied to everybody regardless. Everyone knows the situation. And to be honest, if you get (for example) your first TV licence at age 21 when you first move out, and are "done" for 1 month, yes you are charged 1/12th extra for the first year, but it is only 1/24th in year 2, 1/36th in year 3 etc etc.

Do you pay motor tax? If so then the same situation applies, if not you will find out when you do begin to pay it.

blorg wrote:

Sorry, that is absolute cráp

Blorg, I merely answered dublinhead's question on how likely the chance of an inspector calling is.

I just pointed out that if you dont have a licence, then the liklihood of being called upon is the inverse of the proportion of houses that do have a licence.

I then explained that if the inspectors wanted to proceed further they could. The implication of getting a warrant, as specified in my post is that some evidence has been gained otherwise the warrant would not be issued. I did not specify what the evidence would be or how it would be obtained - that is immeterial to you if the inspector calls to your door with a warrant. Once the warrant has been issued, it can be enacted upon, and you don't have a right to question that aspect of it. At that stage it is due legal process.

L.

The_Conductor

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

Technically you even need a TV license if you have a mobile phone capable of receiving TV signals.

An Post do have a database of all the letters they carry.
Did you get Cable TV ?

Technically- you need a licence for every seperate location where you use your mobile phone to receive TV signals......

bill_ashmount

nereid wrote:

As for what is the licence fee used for?



L.

Couldn't they do us all a favour and scrap both the licence and RTE.

antoinolachtnai

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

They just keep the name and address that is visible on the envelope.

And oddly enough they actually have a valid reason to retain this information.

What would that be?

Nermal

loyatemu wrote:

the alternative is to fund RTE from general taxation which would be even more unfair as people with no TVs would then be paying for the service.

given the cost of enforcing/administering the licence, it would be better to fund it out of taxation. the argument that 'i don't use it, why should i pay for it' doesn't hold with any other tax, particularly as so few people genuinely don't need to have one.

getting rid of it would mean we could fire some pointless civil servants and sell the detection vans... and not print the letters, or receipts, or have to take to court those who weren't paying... it would be less regressive as it would be tied to income... far too sensible an idea to be accepted really.

godtabh

Is there the same hatred of the tv fee in England? The BBC is funded by taxpayers via the tv "tax". The BBC dont show any adds and to be honest I think they have a better offering the RTE.

How would RTE fair if they couldnt show adds i.e put them on an equal footing to TV3?

I'll pay mt tv "tax" when I move into my place just as pay my road tax and all the other taxes I dont want to pay!

Only thing certain in life is taxes and death!

antoinolachtnai

What detection vans would these be?

Victor

antoinolachtnai wrote:

What would that be?

If somebody writes:

"John Murphy,
Main Street,
Dublin 19"

instead of:

"John Murphy,
123 Main Street,
Dublin 19"

It means the letter has a much better chance of getting there. The system keeps track of every varient of the correct address so it can redirect the post.

godtabh

Victor wrote:

If somebody writes:

"John Murphy,
Main Street,
Dublin 19"

instead of:

"John Murphy,
123 Main Street,
Dublin 19"

It means the letter has a much better chance of getting there. The system keeps track of every varient of the correct address so it can redirect the post.

I've had letter addressed to me at home with tottaly different housing estate names get to me

antoinolachtnai

You are saying that An Post is building up a database of names related to addreses, for residential addresses? Are you certain about that?

Misaddressed mail generally gets to you because of the postman's local knowledge, not because of the giant database.

Even if they did have this database, why do you think they would be entitled to use it in connection with TV licence collections?

loyatemu

kearnsr wrote:

Is there the same hatred of the tv fee in England? The BBC is funded by taxpayers via the tv "tax". The BBC dont show any adds and to be honest I think they have a better offering the RTE.

How would RTE fair if they couldnt show adds i.e put them on an equal footing to TV3?

60m people in the UK, 4m in the ROI - RTE wouldn't survive on just the license fee (not in its present form anyway).

I believe the license fee isn't massively popular in the UK, but the BBC does produce a lot of quality material in return.

Victor

antoinolachtnai wrote:

Even if they did have this database, why do you think they would be entitled to use it in connection with TV licence collections?

Fair point.

Cabaal

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

Technically you even need a TV license if you have a mobile phone capable of receiving TV signals.

An Post do have a database of all the letters they carry.
Did you get Cable TV ?

I know of no mobile phone able to receive tv signals....video streams yes but not tv signals.

Surely if you need a license for a mobile phone able to receive video streams of TV shows then you also need a TV license for a standard PC that can also view streaming media? (PC without video tuner).

The fact that this is a tax that apparently only people with TVs pay is also a joke, wasn't their a case a few years back where a journalist for the Irish Times ended up in court because he hadn't a TV and the inspectors didn't believe him and wanted to fine him?