PC Retail

mmm, sounds like unlikely scare-mongering to me..
However if it does go through, i'm looking forward to the rush of purchases before it kicks in!!

Great, just what we all need, another stealth tax in Rip Off Britain!

I agree with M Taylor the next thing will be a tax bloody fresh air

It about time we scrap the TV license anyway let auntie fend for its self like other broadcasters

On Line broadcasters are already expected to pay PPL
and MRCS fees now the authorities want a double bite of the cherry from the public as well. Any which way they can they
will rip us off and keep us down. Jees what a greedy grasping country this has become, and still they don't learn from events
like the so called credit crunch. Greed Gredd and more greed.

That just takes the biscuit. Don't worry too much about handing out a few billion to rescue the 'banks' that have screwed businesses for the last couple of decades and are now sloping off to hide in some dingy corner of the globe as the going gets tough. Makes my blood boil. I thought ofcom is meant to act in the consumer interest - not some bloated bureaucracy. I agree with the statement above - time to let auntie fend for itself.

Think about it JimC.... handing out a few billion to rescue the banks. That money has to come from somewhere, and they can't screw much more out of the motorist/transport sector.

The next thing.... "Do you have a licence for that mobile phone, and are your roller skates taxed, MOT'd and insured?"

Auntie should advertise on it's extra channels - leaving BBC1 & 2 for "public service broadcasting" (Football, Rugby, Cricket, Snooker, etc....) and every other channel should carry adverts - same for their radio stations. The old 2,3,4 advert free, 1 & 5-live with 'sponsored programming', and everything else carrying advertising/sponsorship.
Otherwise, sell it off, ditch the licence fee, and live in the real world like every other country on the planet.

I wonder how much these people are paid to come up with yet more tax idea's. this government never fails to amaze me.
I'll wager their salary is a great deal more than mine. I think it's time to bail out. as John Major once said, will the last person leaving the country please turn the lights out.

yeh brilliant great can offcom sort out my disabled money can they fcuk
get a life not every body gets a fortune every month for coming up with stupid ideas like this still look on the bright
side they dont tax us for walking on the pavement yet. Oh **** sorry everybody

Great, let's create another Government Department for managing PC Taxes like the TV licence. A fleet of Vans going around peoples houses and lots of civil servants employed to contribute nothing to the wealth of the country. So, exactly how much does it cost to collect TV licence fees and how many people don't have a TV?

I'd be prepared to pay a tax of around half the tv license if it covered online broadcasting and P2P downloading.
I think it is unfair on those who own a computer and do not use any form of online broadcasting..... in all honesty what they're proposing just seems as tho its trying to screw a bit more cash out of people who can actually be bothered to get up to date with technology

What is the source for this story?

Why is there no link to OFCOM relating to a study/working group/initiative to conside the alleged proposal.

Or did the writer of the story just happen to overhear that his neighbor's uncle's friend knew of somebody's cousin who works at OFCOM had come up with this idea?

Another piece of sloppy and inflammatory journalism.

The reason why there isn't a link is because we don't normally link to press releases or reports.

The link to the report is: http://www.ofcom.o...ase2/

And as another heads up, we're not the only publication reporting on this: http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/09/26/britain-considers-taxing-ipod

Stuff if.. Lets TAX everything from the ground up.. but at the same time, lets make the TAX system proportional! So, the more you earn, the higher percentage of tax you have to pay on everything.. That'll soon stop the richer idiots working for places like Oftax - oops sorry Oftel - from coming up new newer and more stupid TAX idea's...!

If society deems that it wants / needs Public Service Broadcasting then "society" should pay for it, and the only way that we can do that is by taxation in one form or another. We need to decide, however, just exactly what is a "public service". The degree of real eduction in what these days might be classed as educational programmes, can often be debatable.

There's an argument to be made that social education (= Public Service), covering areas that used to be the province of the family, should be paid for by society (=tax); issues such as health, religion, political awareness etc should definately see lots of exposure in broadcast media, but few businesses would want to fund them by advertising - the audience would be too low.

Public services should be paid for by the public, but trying to extract payment from the small proportion who use those services, at point of use, would be too difficult, arbitary & expensive for the individual users, and if these services are potentially going to be used, a bit, by most of us, at some time or another, then the logical way is via some sort of tax. That could be a licence fee, but it would probably be better to simply to take it out of personal tax.

One poss alternative would be to require all broadcasters to run a certain %age of PS broadcasting, but that would be virually impossible ... now that communism has been proven to be unworkable!