News - £6 per year broadband tax to go ahead

[HEXUS]

In his pre-budget report, the Chancellor of the Exchequer confirmed he intends to impose the tax on fixed lines.

Read more.

[Saracen]

The bigger question.... do we believe politicians, whether in power or trying to get in, will be open, clear and honest about what's coming in the next few years?

I sure as hell don't.

Whatever they say, however they try to present it, it (IMHO, of course) is going to involve heavy spending cuts, and is going to involve tax rises. I'd be astonished if we get a clear annunciation of much more than about 20% of what's coming. After all, the patronising attitude from politicians is that they mustn't frighten the children. And that's us, by the way, the voters, the people they work for (in theory).

But this time, they've got a problem. Both main parties are worried that if they're too hair shirt about the future, it'll cost them votes. And if they're not hair shirt enough, the markets will panic, the UK's credit rating sill be downgraded, and they either won't be able to get the huge borrowing they need at all or, at best, the rates WE and up paying for it will go up.

So what this PBR is is a balance between trying to look responsible without scaring us too much, whilst still not panicking those they need to borrow from in the future.

We shouldn't pay too much attention to what they say they're going to do, because in my opinion, it'll only be a pale shadow of what they actually do, once safely past a General Election. The PBR is at least as much, if not more, about election positioning than it is about economics.

[Lee H]

If this helps improve the poor speeds people are getting and helps improve the infastructure so faster speeds can be offered then I'm all for this to be implemented.

50p a month is not that much in my eyes. I probably loose more than that in a month through a small hole in my pocket and I'm sure you can go without 1 chocolate bar a month in order to get a faster net connection

[[GSV]Trig]

I dont trust them as far as I could throw an African Elephant.

The question is, what do we do about it, we vote for the other guy, who, also a group of politicians are also bound to lie to us.

I'd be Prime Minister but somehow I dont think I'd get many votes once I become a politician and would be tarred with the lying b'stard brush. Ok so I've already got my party slogan but somehow I really dont think "No smoke, no mirrors, no BS" would go down well on roadside adverts..
Its great having ideas but until you get in power and know all of whats going on and see all the figures you dont know the whole story, you end up trying to get out of holes the previous government got you in and then your screwed blaming them, borrowing more and putting up taxes, your screwed too..

[Hicks12]

Is it me or are the simple things missed by the government now a days?. We lack funding so we need to borrow (fair enough) but with that we shouldnt just tax the tax payers more, they should be giving less money to people on benefits because at the moment its a piss take especailly with them going to give them BB and sky in a few years!.

They should reduce the number of people on the dole by simply forcing them to do manual labour, get them to all turn turbines for a day and produce some electric for the country or something?. That would save us crap loads especially for the tax payer, we may eventually get a rate similar to those on benefits!.


Oh and one crucial crucial factor i believe should be changed is... No votes if your on the dole, it sounds harsh but these changes wont happen for the good of england because politicians are always worried about the votes(like saracen pointed out), so anything negative to the dole system isnt going to give good votes for them!.

Or is this just my own opinion?

[Mossy]

If this helps improve the poor speeds people are getting and helps improve the infastructure so faster speeds can be offered then I'm all for this to be implemented.

50p a month is not that much in my eyes. I probably loose more than that in a month through a small hole in my pocket and I'm sure you can go without 1 chocolate bar a month in order to get a faster net connection

Although I agree faster speeds will be nice are you really that naive, you know it will get used to fund their second homes and VIP lifestyle.

I very much doubt we will see a faster infulstructure by 2020 and the worlds supposed end by 2012!

[shaithis]

The question is, what do we do about it, we vote for the other guy, who, also a group of politicians are also bound to lie to us.

There is only one thing left to do IMHO....and it solves more then just the financial situation, it also solves a lot of the other issues people aren't happy with: immigration, rip-off Britain and the whole "nanny state" issues.

It's also something I am seriously contemplating: Emigrate.....personally I am starting to get the draw of New Zealand

[Jay]

is that per household or per line?

[Lee H]

Although I agree faster speeds will be nice are you really that naive, you know it will get used to fund their second homes and VIP lifestyle.

Gah... stop being so cynical with your old age

As long as the money is used to fund a radical overhaul of the current PSTN network, I'll not be complaining if I have to have 1 mars bar a month less so that I can get a nice 100/200 Mbps connection at home in the future so that we can catch up to the faster speeds offered by other countries out there.

[Singh400]

As long as it is invested back in the internet infrastructure in the UK, I’m all for it. OFNS says 18.3 million households have internet access. That is a cool £110 million revenue (18.3m x £6) generated that should be ploughed back into the UK internet infrastructure! So as long as they do what they said in the Digital Britan report, we should start seeing changes very quickly.

Or will it all disappear into the coffers of MPs and the other evils of this country.

[Saracen]

If this helps improve the poor speeds people are getting and helps improve the infastructure so faster speeds can be offered then I'm all for this to be implemented.

50p a month is not that much in my eyes. I probably loose more than that in a month through a small hole in my pocket and I'm sure you can go without 1 chocolate bar a month in order to get a faster net connection

It's a rather regressive way of doing it though.

A phone line is pretty close to an essential these days, at least for anyone much above cardboard city in social terms. Yes, you can exist on cellphones only, but then you either face a large contract charge or high per minute rates, at least compared to landlines.

If you want to fund infrastructure, why not fund it by decreasing the point at which the marginal rates of income tax apply, so people start paying 40%, or 50% a but earlier than current bands do (or will, for 50%)?

Or why not apply a charge to high bandwidth users? Why not let this be funded by the big users?

For anyone not sure about the terminology I'm using, by "regressive" I mean that the burden falls unduly on those least able to pay. If you have something that hits all (or most) taxpayers equally, then it's "regressive" in that the impact in the poor is proportionately higher than that on those much more able to pay.

Somehow, the notion of a low-income family on the breadline with a phone line running to their two-bed council flat paying a tax to support broadband infrastructure to those with what might well be a nice, valuable detached property off the beaten track out in a nice, quiet rural location kind of repulses me. For this type of non-essential purpose, tax those that can afford it, not those that are struggling as it is and a flat charge regardless of income is not, in my view, the way to do it. It's arbitrary charging phone users for broadband infrastructure. For example, my elderly, widowed mother-in-law doesn't have a broadband connection at all, and doesn't want one and probably wouldn't be able to work out what to do with it .... yet a phone line is her only way to keep in regular touch with most of her geographically diverse family. And she'll be paying this tax out of her pension, which is meagre enough as it is .... or have to give up her phone line, which enables the calls to the family that are probably about all that makes her life worth living.

This is a populist political stunt, and a poorly thought out one at that, much like Brown's abolition of the 10p tax band.

[Saracen]

Better yet, as it's only a few hundred million, how about taxing bankers obscene bonuses to pay for it. After all, a few hundred million and they'd barely notice. Not that I'd advocate pupulaist measure or anything.

[Carlh]

Why have this charge at all?? most of this money is apparently suppose to upgrade the BT network therefore surely it should be down to BT to fund it - its not like they dont make money out of the services they provide

Will customers on other phone services which already have optic fibre and high speed connections also have to pay this charge?, for example Virgin media customers who are on the 50MB package, these already have high speed connections which the government are aiming for however they pay a large subscription price each month.

[superscaper]

If this helps improve the poor speeds people are getting and helps improve the infastructure so faster speeds can be offered then I'm all for this to be implemented.

50p a month is not that much in my eyes. I probably loose more than that in a month through a small hole in my pocket and I'm sure you can go without 1 chocolate bar a month in order to get a faster net connection

Maybe it's not that much, true (even assuming it will be spent on the intended fund and assuming it will be temporary, neither of which is likely going by history), but why couldn't this be for ISP accounts instead of fixed telephone lines? Why should my old pensioner nan have to pay when she doesn't even own (nor really understand) a computer? It's bit like suddenly applying road tax to anyone that walks.

[zoomee]

All they're gunna do with this new tax is get broadband into those who live out in the sticks (that being the majority of people who are the most richest in this country) to help they're stats (i.e. Britain is 100% on teh web)

LET THEM PAY FOR THEY'RE OWN BLOOMIN BROADBAND! It's VERY much doubtful you will see 100mb connections as a result of this - they're just trying to get a way of reaching the 5-10% left in the sticks without 512Kb broadband by taxing us poor folk who already have it!

Our country is seriously going to pot - I have to agree with saracen and other posts here, The government are seriously out of touch with us 'normal' folk and are going about things in the wrong manner without consultation with the masses - why not tax them gits who are shafting the country left right and centre already..... saying that, its probably they're way of 'making up' for lost MP expenses as a result of the recent scandals.

[Scott B]

Better yet, as it's only a few hundred million, how about taxing bankers obscene bonuses to pay for it. After all, a few hundred million and they'd barely notice. Not that I'd advocate pupulaist measure or anything.

They have. And that should claw back around 0.00001% of the money we've given them. Assuming they pay it.