Re: TV Licenses
As I understand it, that's exactly what already happens.
The TV license tax mess is ridiculous. The amount is set by the Government, not the BBC. Its applicability (eg no fee for over-75s) is decided by the Government. However, the BBC are legally responsible for collection and enforcement.
The money goes to HMRC or whatever they're called this week, and gets dumped into general revenue. Then the government decide how much to give to the BBC, and other broadcasters - meaning the BBC front the money to collect, but don't benefit directly from the income. The amount given out to broadcasters is independent of the amount brought in from the tax.
The license fee has for years been incorrectly and derogatorily called a "tax", mainly by competitors (other broadcasters such as Sky, and other news outlets such as Murdoch's papers), but it was formally reclassified as a tax in 2006 for no other reason than to classify non-payment as tax evasion.
In the Crown Dependencies (I'm originally from Guernsey), it was legally questionable whether payment was necessary. Now that it's a tax that goes to the UK government, it's almost certainly a breach of some law or other to demand payment. As people have pointed out, it's a regressive tax - just like the poll tax or its rebranded name of council tax.
And of course, Crapita. Need I say more?
For the record, I'm very much in favour of the BBC, and I paid my license fee voluntarily for years when iPlayer didn't require it. But the collection has gone from bad (under the BBC) to awful (under Capita). Raise income tax by 1p or whatever; the low-paid get an instant £145 boost to pay, we can sack Capita and let HMRC's collectors sort it all out, saving the BBC a stackload of cash, and there will be no political changes - the BBC will be just as much under the thumb of whoever wins in June as they are now.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
