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November 25, 2005

When Taxes are Unfair

In the UK, you have to buy a license to view your TV. Naturally tax-evasion is rampant:

One evader told the inspectors: “That’s not a TV, it’s a fish tank.” Equally inventive was the evader in Newport, Gwent, who said: “I never use my set. I just switched on EastEnders to see if it affected my radio reception.”

Another evader in Dunfermline, Fife, offered the tortuous explanation: “I don’t need a TV licence because I only watch Australian soaps and, as far as I’m aware, you don’t need a licence in Australia.”

Total bullcrap.
Property, gasoline, and liquor taxes in the US are bad enough. But this kind of purposeless, petty, nickel-and-diming abuse of the populace is the stuff of Republican nightmares.

UPDATE: Check out this site, apparently Britons aren't the sheep the Beeb would hope they'd be.

Thanks, Cheshire Cat.

posted by LauraW. at 08:09 PM

Comments

So, is there a spud-gun tax in Connecticut?

Posted by: Michael on November 25, 2005 08:18 PM

From my cold, dead hands!

Posted by: lauraw on November 25, 2005 08:24 PM

Well, Did Eastenders affect his reception or not?

Posted by: Cheese_Tensor on November 25, 2005 09:02 PM

Get ready to be taxed now on how many miles you drive, monitored by guv GPS installed in your car. Oregon leads the way, again.

Bastards.

Posted by: Unruly Human on November 25, 2005 09:03 PM

Well, we tax TV here in the U.S.. We're just a little more subtle; bandwidth sales by the gov't, utility fees, sales taxes, etc.

Posted by: BrewFan on November 25, 2005 09:16 PM

I have a friend who is from Norway, and she has been "out of town" or "studying in the United States" when the TV tax people show up at the door for, um, her entire life. [Of course, it's her telling the tax people this to their faces.]

I think the annual TV tax there is $200. [To put it in perspective, a speeding ticket is $1000-$1500 depending on how fast you were going.].

The taxes there are so high it's nothing but humorous at this point. But healthcare is "free" of course.

Posted by: Feisty on November 25, 2005 09:59 PM

Worse. It's like extorting $150 a year out of every household (you don't pay for every TV in the house, but you pay for every house that has a TV) and forking it over to PBS, no matter what wild shit they produce. There's a reason the BBC can afford to be Pravda on the Thames, but with champagne for lunch.

Posted by: S. Weasel on November 25, 2005 10:26 PM

Open your mouth and say "ah".

Posted by: Norwegian Wood on November 25, 2005 10:27 PM

On my recent cruise, we met people from Ireland. They were complaining about this ridiculous tax. They said that it applies EVEN IF THE TV DOESN'T WORK!

Unbelievable.

Posted by: JannyMae on November 25, 2005 10:34 PM

As S.Weasel mentioned this is a case of insult being added to injury.

Not only do they HAVE to pay this 'fee' but it largely goes to feeding the BBC so that it can remain the 'progressive' propaganda outlet we all know and love.

Imagine having to but the NYTs whether you wanted it or not, and you get the full flavour of the British system.

Posted by: dougf on November 25, 2005 10:48 PM

You know what's even better? You know how they enfoce this? They have gizmos that can detect a TV in operation. They drive around in vans checking households for an operating TV. Live off-road? They'll walk up to your door with a hand-held detector. If you don't respond to their warnings, they'll publish your name. Like, take out a billboard in your neighborhood that says "53 Fox Lane, 23 Stable Mews and 22 Valley Street haven't paid the license fee." They can also make TV merchants narc on you.

Google "BBC, license fee, van" if'n you don't believe it. The Beeb is about as ugly as it gets.

Posted by: S. Weasel on November 25, 2005 11:10 PM

EastEnders. Bleh.

Posted by: zetetic on November 26, 2005 12:37 AM

Ain't nothing that costs so much as when the government gives it to ya free.

Posted by: Tom M on November 26, 2005 12:50 AM

I believe that at one time, the UK taxed the number of windows in your house. It's always been like that. Remember that the document tax in the colonies was applied to newspapers as well as all other documents and that was one of the causations of the Revolutionary War.

Posted by: rabidfox on November 26, 2005 12:57 AM

Thats nothing. You should see the cat detector vans used by the Ministry of Ousinge to enforce pet licensing fees.

Posted by: epobirs on November 26, 2005 03:26 AM

I believe the window tax is something the French do. In Greece they only tax buildings that are complete, so... you got it, most private residenses have unfinished top floor with all the plumbing and wiring hanging out.

Posted by: ken anthony on November 26, 2005 03:27 AM

I've heard people say the Eastenders is brilliant. Watched it a couple of times.

Don't get it. I'll stick to Funniest Home Videos. Guys getting blasted in the beanbag......now that's comedy.

Posted by: fugazi on November 26, 2005 09:54 AM

What' s worse, is even if you don't own a television and have no plans to watch television, TV Licencing, the racket in charge of all this extortion, will STILL harrass you. Apparently it just isn't cricket if you are radical enough to say "no" to television.

Read more, and thank your god that you live in the US...
http://www.tvlicensing.biz/

Posted by: cheshirecat on November 26, 2005 02:20 PM

Wow, Cheshire Cat. Post has been updated with your link.

Posted by: lauraw on November 26, 2005 05:09 PM

http://www.alltooflat.com/about/python/

monty python spoofed this british lunacy in this episode which left many american baffled

snip------------

Alright, alright, alright. A license.
C: Yes.
S: For a fish.
C: Yes.
S: You are a looney.
C: Look, it's a bleeding pet, isn't it? I've got a license for me pet dog
Eric, and I've got a license for me pet cat Eric...
S: You don't need a license for your cat.
C: I bleeding well do and I got one. He can't be called Eric without it--
S: There's no such thing as a bloody cat license.
C: Yes there is!
S: Isn't!
C: Is!
S: Isn't!
C: I bleeding got one, look! What's that then?
S: This is a dog license with the word 'dog' crossed out and 'cat' written
in in crayon.
C: The man didn't have the right form.
S: What man?
C: The man from the cat detector van.
S: The looney detector van, you mean.
C: Look, it's people like you what cause unrest.
S: What cat detector van?
C: The cat detector van from the Ministry of Housinge.
S: Housinge?
C: It was spelt like that on the van (I'm very observant!). I never seen so
many bleeding aerials. The man said that their equipment could pinpoint
a purr at four hundred yards! And Eric, being such a happy cat, was a
piece of cake.
S: How much did you pay for this?
C: Sixty quid, and eight for the fruit-bat.

snip--------------------

Posted by: iceman on November 27, 2005 10:45 AM

When taxes are unfair the liberals will want more of them

Posted by: spurwing plover on December 1, 2005 05:29 PM

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"It's f**king f**ked."
-- reportedly a genuine comment offered by a "senior Labour source"
Correction: I wrote that Labour is losing 88% (now 87%) of the seats it is "defending." I think that's wrong. The right way to say it is the seats they are contesting -- that is, they don't necessarily already hold these seats, but they have put up a candidate to run for the seat. It's still very bad but not as bad as losing 87% of the seats they already held.

Basil the Great
@BasilTheGreat

🚨ED MILIBAND [a Minister in Starmer's government] SAYS KEIR STARMER WILL RESIGN AS PRIME MINISTER

He has reportedly reassured Labour MP's that Starmer will be resigning following the disastrous results tonight

It's over

"The end of the two party system in the UK" as first the Fake Conservatives and now Labour chooses political suicide rather than simply STOPPING THE INVASION
Incidentally, the only reason this didn't already happen in the US is because of the Very Bad Orange Man (who is right on 85% of all policy calls and extremely, existentially right on 15% of them)

No political party that is NOT also a doomsday religious cult would EVER choose a cataclysmic loss -- and possible extinction as a party -- to support a toxically unpopular favoritism of NON-CITIZEN ILLEGAL MIGRANTS over actual citizen voters.

Only a cult does this.

Now they've lost 84%.

Annunziata Rees-Mogg
@zatzi
If this continues Labour loses 2,148 seats tonight.

That is much worse than the worst case predictions I’ve seen.

Cataclysmic

Update: They've now lost 88% of the seats they're defending. As I mentioned earlier, I think I heard that London will not bail them out, as many of those Labour seats will probably flip to "Muslim Independent" or Green. Detroit's 5am vote will not save them.

Yup, Labour is losing 80% of its seats...

The British Patriot
@TheBritLad

🚨 BREAKING: Labour have lost 80% of all seats contested as of 2:25 AM.<
br> If this continues, Keir Starmer will be out of office next week.

Reform has surged and projected to pick up between 1700-2100 seats.

Wow, up to 1700-2100 seats. It's not incredible that this is happening. It's incredible that the Davos crowd is so absolutely determined to privilege Muslim "migrants" over the actual native population who elects them, no matter how loudly the natives scream that they want to be prioritized, that they will gladly self-extinguish as a party rather than simply representing the interests of their own voters. Astonishing.
Remember, when they call other people "cultists" -- they are the ones so imprisoned in their social reinforcement and discipline bubbles that they will choose political death rather than dare upset the Karen Enforcement Officers of their cult.
Update: Now they've lost 83% of the seats they were defending.

(((Dan Hodges)))
@DPJHodges

Reform are basically wiping Labour out in the North. It's not a defeat. It's not even a rout. Labour are simply ceasing to exist.

Nick Lowles
@lowles_nick

Tonight’s results are calamitous for Labour. Not just for Keir Starmer's leadership, but for the very future of the party

STARMERGEDDON: In early returns, Reform gains 135 seats, Labour loses 90, the Fake Conservatives lose 36 (and I didn't even know they could fall any further), the Lib Dems lose 4, and the Greens gain 6. Note that the only other party gaining seats is the Greens and they're only gaining a handful of seats.
Update: Reform now up 145, Labour down 98.
Labour projected to lose Wales -- where they've ruled for 27 years.
Fulton County Georgia just discovered 400 boxes of ballots for Labour
Update: REF +156, LAB -107, CON -45
Brutal: In four out of five council seats where Labour is defending, they've lost. 80%.
I'm sure it's not this simple, but Reform is straight taking Labour's and the "Conservatives'" seats. They've lost almost exactly what Reform gained. If understand this right (and warning, I probably don't), all of London's council seats are up for election, and Labour might lose hugely there, as their old voters abandon them for Reform, Muslim Indenpendents, and the Greens.
REF +190, LAB -134, CON -56.

Updates on the Labour collapse in council elections -- which wags are calling #Starmergeddon -- from Beege Welborne. There are about 5000 seats up for grabs, Labour is expected to lose 1,800, Reform will probably gain 1,580, up from... zero. So this would be more than that.
People claim that while Labour has adopted the Sharia Agenda to appeal to the million Muslims it allowed to migrate to the country, those voters are ditching Labour to vote for the Muslim Independent Party or the Greens. Delicious. This shadenfreude is going straight to my thighs.
Oh, and if Starmer loses about as badly as expected, Labour will toss him out of a window Braveheart style and replace him. He will announce he is resigning to spend more time with his Gay Ukrainian Male Prostitutes.

Media bias and senationalism are as old as, well, the media:

That was written by Denny O'Neill and illustrated by, get this, Frank Miller. Editor to the Stars Jim Shooter was in charge at the time.
I always thought the gag was original to the comic book, but in fact the "Threat or Menace" headline was a satirical joke about media bias and sensationalism for a long while. The Harvard Lampoon used it in a parody of Life magazine: "Flying Saucers: Threat or Menace?"

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Democrat Congresswoman Sara Jacobs cites Me-Again Kelly, Cavernous Nostrils, Alex Jones and Tuq'r Qarlson as proof that concerns about Trump's mental health are "bipartisan"
As Bonchie from Red State says: Know the op when you see it.

Leftists who have been drawing Frankendistricts for decades are suddenly upset about Republican line-drawing
Socialist usurper Obama cut commercials urging Virginians to vote for the bizarre "lobster" gerrymander -- but now says gerrymanders are so racist you guys
Obama is complaining about the new Louisiana map -- but here's the thing, the new map has much more compact and rational borders than the old racial gerrymander map
Pete Bootyjudge is whining too. But here's the Illinois gerrymander he supports.

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