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Wednesday, January 19, 2005
TV Tax
So I bought me a TV the other day. Bottom-of-the-line, 50%-off, cruddy 23-inch to replace my equally cruddy 13-inch (what can I say, my eyes are going bad). So on top of the $60 for the TV, Best Buy charged me an $8 "recycling fee." The receipt came with a glossy insert stating the following:
State of California Recycling Fee.
Beginning January 1, 2005, California Law requires retailers to colelct recycling fees on customers' purchases of many CRT and LCD products, including some TVs, monitors and notebooks. These recycling fees are remitted to the State of California in accordance with legal requirements.
It refers to a website for more info.
Didn't we elect the Governator to reduce taxes??? Was this some referendum from some long-ago election? What's going on here? I now have even more incentive to go online and ensure I buy from non-California-based businesses in the future! Sure, this price was so low in the first place I wasn't deterred. But what about when I need to pimp my ride with some flat tellies? Or bust out a 52" plasma for the home theater?
Okay, fine, if you're gonna blow ten grand on a screen you won't miss the extra few bucks for this fee. But what about the poor schmuck who just wants a nice TV at the lowest possible price? Call it what you want, this thing is a tax. - served up by Ralphie @ 11:50 AM
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In Ireland (and the UK) the government charges you an annual tax (seems like it was around $150 when I lived there) for the privilege of receiving a television signal. This isn't a cable bill. This is for the 2 crappy stations Ireland broadcasts nationally. Failure to pay is considered pirating the signal and subject to big-time fines... and they enforce it. The upshot is that you have very few commercials (you still have some). The downside is that, in addition to extorting money from you every year, the government-run stations put out seriously crappy programming.
I think it somewhat ties into why Europeans look down on Americans. The programming they bought from the US was of the cheapest, lowest variety. Plenty of "Punky Brewster" and "Who's the Boss", but you only get the good stuff years after its expiration date.
People in Ireland had no idea that Lucille Ball had a show prior to the myriad of crappy post-"I Love Lucy" shows she did in color. Seriously.
Satellite is changing things, but you still gotta pay the tax.
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People in Ireland had no idea that Lucille Ball had a show prior to the myriad of crappy post-"I Love Lucy" shows she did in color. Seriously.
Satellite is changing things, but you still gotta pay the tax.
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