The left-wing UK government is reportedly planning to introduce an internet tax to prop up the financially struggling BBC public broadcaster.
Currently, everyone who watches broadcast television in Britain must pay the government an £180 ($239) annual licence fee, whether they watch the BBC or not. The fee was originally used to fund the BBC’s radio broadcasts, but was later expanded to incorporate TV following the Second World War. Now, amid the rise of streaming services, the left-wing Labour Party government is said to be planning on extending the effective tax to the internet.
According to The Independent, which cited a Whitehall source, plans to change the BBC’s charter will be made public before Christmas, with the present agreement set to expire in December of next year.
The source said the so-called “YouTube tax” will be imposed on internet-based video platforms to stop people from avoiding the television licence fee by watching content on computers, phones, or tablets. This comes as about two million people have stopped paying the BBC television licence fee over the past five years, and 539,000 over the past year, up to April.
If the government imposed an internet fee, an estimated three to four million more people would likely be on the hook to fund the BBC. Yet this would still likely be insufficient to meet the broadcaster’s budget shortfalls.
Nevertheless, the civil service source told the Independent that the additional money could be spent countering “conspiracy theories and fake news” that they claimed helped Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party rise in working-class regions of Britain.
This negative attitude by the civil service and the BBC towards Reform may reflect the party’s vow to abolish the BBC licence fee altogether and force the broadcaster to compete on an even footing with private media.
