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British TV Tax Fought By Some

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People in the US are always surprised to hear that Brits pay a special tax to fund TV. Taxpayers pay about $275 dollars yearly to ensure that the BBC keeps running. For people who don’t even own a TV, the tax still has to be paid. Some of these folks are fighting back.

Smith’s TV-free status has brought him into conflict with a venerable but unloved British institution: the television license.

“As far as I’m concerned, it’s harassment,” Smith said, brandishing a thick folder containing 80 letters he has received over the last seven years, variously suggesting, requesting and demanding that he buy a TV license, at an annual cost of 135.50 pounds (US$274; €178). “I’ve done nothing wrong. I don’t see why I have to answer to anybody.”

If you want to watch television in Britain — and even if, like Smith, you don’t — you have to answer to TV Licensing, the collective name for a group of companies that collects the fee on behalf of the British Broadcasting Corp.

The law has been in effect since 1946. Smith says he’s been consistently harassed for nonpayment of the tax.