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back to article French prez mulls mobe, fondleslab tax for telly

Despite his communication minister ruling it out a couple of days ago, French President Hollande has decided he wants to whack a second tax on smartphones, tablets and PCs. Francois Hollande made the U-turn announcement after meeting with CSA (the Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel) which regulates electronic media in France. …

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  1. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
    Facepalm

    Don't give Aunty Beeb ideas

    Currently the UK and Ireland do not impose such levies - although Hollande’s wheeze may give other legislators ideas. ®

    Don't forget, ex Culture Secretary James Purnell and his contacts book is on the BBC payroll

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Purnell

    0 0 Reply
    1. Alain
      Reply Icon

      Re: Don't give Aunty Beeb ideas

      On the other hand, it's my understanding that you British people pay a significantly higher TV licence fee than we do as of now. If I'm not misled it's 145 pounds vs. 131 euros (103 pounds) for us (it's bound to be bumped by 5 or 6 euros next year I've heard)

      Don't tell Hollande, that'd give him ideas too... ;-)

      1 0 Reply
      1. Anonymous Coward
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        Anonymous Coward

        but don't you French

        Have to put-up with adverts and stuff on your state funded TV channels??

        0 0 Reply
  2. Christian Berger

    It's just part of the insanity

    For example if I buy a BluRay, I need to pay for the DRM the issuer puts on, plus I need to pay to get the DRM off that copy so I can watch it... and even that's no more legal than just torrenting it.

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  3. Alain

    It's not really a new tax

    I'll repost an edited copy if the second part of my message which has been deleted by a moderator, probably because it was addressing a serious French language error in the title. The title has changed, no French there anymore. However I think that the second part still is relevant. So here it is:

    I'm not going to defend a new tax, but as far as I know the way it would work is that people who don't own a TV (at least not officially - see what I mean?) and who don't pay the TV licence ("redevance audiovisuel public") yet would start paying it if they own a PC, tablet or smartphone.

    Nowadays each household pays this licence fee ONCE, regardless of the number of TV sets owned. My understanding is that this would be extended to these new devices. It's NOT an extra tax on the price of a purchased device and therefore it's different from the private copy tax. It's basically trying to collect this TV license fee from just every household, which makes sense in a way.

    1 0 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      Re: It's not really a new tax

      It seems perfectly reasonable, as I know several families in this country who "don't have a TV" and don't seem to understand how iPlayer or its Channel 4 equivalent actually work (and who pays for the content and the servers).

      0 0 Reply
      1. david bates
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        Re: It's not really a new tax

        They understand perfectly - as long as they use it as 'catchup' and not to watch 'live' broadcast then TVL can do one, as they 'do not have a TV'.

        2 0 Reply
  4. Teiwaz

    We're all heading to Hell in a basket-case

    In the news tomorrow.

    Large Coffee-shop chains seek to have a tax imposed coffee granules, cups, teaspoons and milk because people are now able to make their own coffee and we're (think) we're seeing a lost sales opportunity.

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  5. Dr_N

    Like they don't get enough public funding through the annual <<redevance audiovisuel>> and adverts to produce the large amount of 5th rate guff that they do.

    The only thing worse than French TV is French Radio.

    4 0 Reply
    1. Chris G
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      Try watching and listening to Spanish TV and radio.

      1 0 Reply
      1. Contrex
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        "Try watching and listening to Spanish TV and radio."

        Pagina 2 is good, Somos Cortos, Repor, Metropolis, all good TVE productions.

        0 0 Reply
    2. Contrex
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      5th rate guff

      ... I saw a brilliant version of Figaro from the Aix-en-Provence Festival on Arte recently, modern dress, brilliantly done, and Jean-Paul Pernaut is always a treat on the JT 13h on TF1

      0 1 Reply
  6. JLV
    Boffin

    bloke never met a tax he did not like

    £3/phone

    say 25m phones/yr assuming 2 yr cycles

    But not if you pay TV tax already, say 50%

    Say 3x 25 x .5 => £37.5m/yr

    Questions to Mr Hollande: how much will it cost in civil servants to admin this tax?

    How much IT & biz overhead to collect it?

    Yay, I can see where your poll ratings come from... Les edentes te saluent.

    0 0 Reply

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