418 sats \ 13 replies \ @orthwyrm 19 Oct 2023 \ on: Bullshit jobs meta
In the UK, we have this thing called a TV license. It's as ridiculous as it sounds. People who watch state TV (BBC) must by law pay £159 / year.
As you can imagine, not many people cough up the money. The BBC is shit and the law is next to impossible to enforce. So if you're not on the TV license register, the government instead harasses you with angry little letters to try and scare you into paying. I hate these things so much that I ritualistically set fire to them whenever they land in my letter box, which is about every other month.
The longer you ignore the letters, the angrier they get. The first letter is just kind of stern. By the third letter they're screaming at you in big red capital letters about how you're under surveillance and breaking the law. By the fifth letter they threaten to send a "television inspector" to your address if you still haven't gotten back to them.
The inspector almost never comes. It's all hot air. But the fact that there is such a thing as a TV inspector in the first place blows my fuckin' mind. This is surely peak BS, right up there with the poor bastards who print the stupid letters out in the first place.
"You will pay us to feed you propaganda and you will be happy"
I'm sure even the queen had enough of it
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Sounds similar to what we have with the "Rundfunkbeitrag" in Germany.
It's like a tax disguised as not a tax because our public media should be independent but the state gives them the right to send every household a bill as long as they have any device which might receive the signals they broadcast.
So if you have a TV, Radio or just internet access, you need to pay.
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I never had to pay
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It could be worse. Italy is dealing with the same shit, but instead of sending you letters they literally force everyone to pay this nonsense tax, by coupling the amount to electricity bills. Yes, you heard that right, the government is colluding with private utility companies to enforce something that would be otherwise complete bullshit.
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That's bonkers.
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People who watch state TV (BBC) must by law pay £159 / year.
If I'm understanding this right they're expecting people to pay for something that is broadcast to them regardless of if they want it or not.
Or do they actually know that you're watching somehow? If you just tell them you don't watch the BBC are you still supposed to pay?
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They have to know you are watching.
Inspectors have no right to enter your property without permission. So on the extremely rare occassion one does show up, you can say just say no.
It's next to unenforcable. The only people who pay are the elderly who don't know any better (and BBC enthusiasts I guess?)
Maybe a few decades ago where TVs were less common the law could actually be applied effectively. To give you a sense of how archiac this system is, the government generously lowers the fee to ~£60 / year if you only have a black and white TV.
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lol
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Almost as stupid as the Stamp Act.
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I'd love to be the TV Inspector. Bet it would impress everyone
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I could never imagine that level of absurdity. But coming from the state, everything is possible.
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