AfterDawn: News

Controversial broadband tax in UK will be law

According to the Minister for Digital Britain Stephen Timms, the controversial UK "broadband tax" should "be law" soon, meaning every citizen with a fixed line telephone will have to pay a 50 pence a month tax.

Timms added that the tax will be part of the larger Finance Bill set to be presented to parliament before the next election.



Tory MP John Whittingdale adds that the tax is expected to raise about £175 million a year "to fund high speed networks."

The bill is expected to face opposition, mostly from the Conservative party.

"I'm confident the Conservative party will oppose it. I object to it on the basis that it is another tax and is aimed at people who are using old technology," added Mr Whittingdale.

Reiterated Timms: "We want to make high speed networks nationally available. The next-generation fund will help that and we will legislate for it this side of a general election."

The bill is "full steam ahead," adds business secretary, Lord Mandelson.

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 23 Sep 2009 14:01

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• 16 comments

• jos22

  we already pay VAT on BB on more taxes should be added

  23.9.2009 14:26 #1

• Dark86

  this is something i aspect are government would do to kiss up to the ira because they never get enough tax dollars
  butt the UK doing it is shocking is obama giving great Britain ideas
  lord know obama is nonething butt a failure butt are allies should go a different route or else face great peril

  23.9.2009 14:45 #2

• manrod

  Jesus Christ. We in the U.K get tax raped on everything.
  
  What next, tax on breathable air? Tax on how many miles a week I walk?

  23.9.2009 15:23 #3

• westbrom

  TAX to get high speeds but you cant download anything or youll get turned off

  23.9.2009 15:54 #4

• slickwill

  Originally posted by manrod: Jesus Christ. We in the U.K get tax raped on everything.
  
  What next, tax on breathable air? Tax on how many miles a week I walk?Yeah, they will strap-lock a Pedometer to you leg that wirelessly sends information on your walking statistics to the government agency..LOL

  23.9.2009 17:31 #5

• ZippyDSM

  As long as they make the ISPs do something about infrastructure issues it dose not sound like a bad idea....but I bet like the US they will give them money and let them piss on themselves to how to mis spend it.

  23.9.2009 18:17 #6

• RusSnajp

  NEW WORLD ORDER WARNING!
  
  They want more money!
  
  
  This is from the same crap as antipiracy , they want to have control over the web.
  
  If something gets leaked they do not want to available in torrents so everybody on the planet can see.
  
  They are creating EU to be like USA , heavy taxes , Tv propaganda , brainwashing , control over the population.
  
  The new election will be just a phony effort to bring more of the corrupted people to the scene.
  
  One of the biggest mistakes "Each download is a lost sale" is the biggest crap i ever heard and this is what we're defending with , cause they are clearly bluffing. I do not download stuff that Is worth paying and I will play it online that includes COD, COH , C&C, Crysis,stuff from IDsoftware, ... other than that I won't buy , IF I HAVE IT AVAILABLE OR NOT ON THE WEB.
  
  SO what torrents actually do is promote the things people aren't willing to pay for at the first place. Torrents are means of free ADVERTISING on a fucking large scale.
  
  Ex. Maybe I download this game , I might buy the sequel if the first one was so great!
  
  Ex.2: I was obsessed with C&C RA2YR and Generals ZH , when I had new PC i did not found CDs and the downloads were not to find anymore ,I bought it the next day so that I can play a game that was 5 years old but beats the hell out of almost everything.
  With Gen ZH , I had playing it for years and modding, while I had newer games bought, I did not had General ZH original , but I was eager to try online so I bought the deluxe version and it was no penny wasted(that game is the last soul of westwood albeit with EA logos all around)
  
  So the best game from my childhood RA2YR , I played it at my friend , but when I had a PC of my own , didn't had original , but the game was so good there was noting stopping me from getting proper CDs.
  
  And don't tell me piracy is what is stopping sales , far from it. Do you think I will buy some stuff immediately if the downloads are not available. Some will who download games that they seriously need , like sims fnaboys, but I don't download games that have to be honored and to be supported. BUY the game if you like it. Support the developers they are hardworking and are usually treated as lowest in the market(by other big publishing companies)

  24.9.2009 04:18 #7

• scum101

  Dear Lord Mandelson,
  
  After your meteroic re-rise to the top of the Labour Party, I was hoping that you would have learned the lessons of the past. Apparently not. Despite surviving the expenses scandal relatively unscathed, your reputation for sleaze and corruption remains unshaken as demonstrated by your increasingly dubious behaviour over the past ten days.
  
  Last week, Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi was released on compassionate grounds. Soon afterwards, reports emerged that you had met Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s son a week before we first learned that the Libyan man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing could be freed. You apparently spoke briefly about the case with Saif al-Islam Gaddafi while on holiday in Corfu, yet your spokesman had the nerve to suggest that the subsequent reports of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi’s possible release from jail were “entirely coincidental”. Totally unmoved by your dubious financial activities in the past on Corfu yachts, you were staying as a guest of the Rothschild family on the Greek island and your stay just happened to coincide with that of Saif Gaddafi, who is seen as the Libyan leader’s most likely successor, by a single night but this was long enough for the two men to discuss the Megrahi case. It is entirely possible that some trade deals might have slipped into the conversation too.
  
  As if one incident of behind-the-scenes lobbying and shadowy deals wasn’t enough, yesterday you were accused of caving into a “big lobbying operation” after ordering a change in policy on internet piracy. You are proposing cutting the broadband connection from users who swap copyrighted content, which has outraged internet providers who said that it would breach fundamental rights and would not work. Even though this proposal was rejected by Lord Carter, the former Digital Britain minister and Downing Street special adviser, a matter of months ago, you have mysteriously changed your mind. Tom Watson, the former Labour minister who I hardly find myself agreeing with on a regular basis, said: “To unravel Stephen Carter’s settlement is a mistake. The proposals pander to rights holders who have failed to find new business models for the digital age.” On his blog, he added that this will “lead to accusations that the Government has been captured by the big lobby operations of powerful rights holders.” Well said that man. Of course, your new policy of disconnecting broadband users has nothing to do with the fact that on 7th August, you dined with David Geffen, the billionaire producer who co-founded the DreamWorks studio with Steven Spielberg, at a villa in Corfu. Mr Geffen was an earlier opponent of MP3 players that allowed illegal downloads. Officials denied that they discussed internet piracy and suggested that the decision to reverse Lord Carter’s findings had been taken in late July. The Business Department was unable to explain the timing so soon after the Digital Britain report, and suggested that Lord Carter had just been “wrong”. The official statement from Stephen Timms, who succeeded Lord Carter as a minister for Digital Britain last month, comes halfway through a consultation on the issue.
  
  The strange thing is that none of this surprises me. In fact, I expected nothing less. Some people seem to have forgotten that you have already been forced to resign not once but twice from the Cabinet for your involvement in dodgy deals, breaking rules and even abusing your Cabinet position. Even when you were at the European Commissioner, you got caught ‘facilitating’ a deal in 2004 which cut raw aluminium tariffs from 6% to 3%, making your friend, the Russion billionare Oleg Deripaska, about £50 million in the process. Controversy, deception and denials are always just a few steps behind you and the fact that someone who has been disgraced time and time again is now the Deputy Prime Minister in all but name is a disgrace to British politics. You may not have been forced to resign over your expenses, but there are a million and one other reasons why you shouldn’t be anywhere near the levers of power.
  
  Yours sincerely,
  
  A.Tory

  24.9.2009 04:40 #8

• twotsie23

  wait for it,,,,,,,,,,they,ll be wanting to tax you the next time u have a poo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  24.9.2009 07:12 #9

• twotsie23

  it never ceases to amaze me that the goverment just dont know where or what to put a tax on next,,,,, they simply couldnt careless about the ordinary folk on the street how they survive espically in the econmic climate of today,,,, prices will go on riseing with everything taxes will continue to rise,, but will your wages, NO!!!!!its about time britain made a stand FRANCE DOES!!!! so whats wrong with us BRITS,,,,were far to damm soft!!!!! the goverment forget one thing its the likes of us that put them where they are,,,,,,,,

  24.9.2009 07:21 #10

• domie

  Originally posted by Dark86: this is something i aspect are government would do you REALLY need to buy a dictionary

  24.9.2009 08:08 #11

• Stu_dent

  Quote:Originally posted by manrod: Jesus Christ. We in the U.K get tax raped on everything.
  
  What next, tax on breathable air? Tax on how many miles a week I walk?Yeah, they will strap-lock a Pedometer to you leg that wirelessly sends information on your walking statistics to the government agency..LOLYeah they say it will be for "walking statistics" but really just another way for the government to keep tabs on everyone in the country.
  
  Back more to the article, I dont think that a Broadband tax is the way forward but something definately needs to be done about the state of out Broadband/high speed network and the ISPs that run it.
  
  We are heading for a future where more and more is streamed through the internet yet ISP's in the UK seem to be capping connections at peak times more and more and/or lowering monthly caps, soon it will get to the stage where it will be, great the UK now has 50Mb lines widely available throughout the UK but all that will mean is we can hit out Broadband monthly caps in no time at all or we will never see the full 50mb speeds because the ISPs are limiting the lines 24/7.

  24.9.2009 08:34 #12

• Dark86

  Quote:Originally posted by Dark86: this is something i aspect are government would do you REALLY need to buy a dictionaryyou need to get a life i don't need you trying to speech to me on how i should type

  24.9.2009 15:31 #13

• townliar

  Never.... they want a BB tax and also a blanc media tax but what can we download? 3 strikes and you are off, soon you will not need a fixed phoneline to get Broadband watch all the parasites go bust then.
  I like thousands only have a telephone line to get braodband what will happen when we all get BB by WiFi?
  Why are the ISP's not ploughing back their millions in profit into the system, all I hear is you are throttled at peak times so everyone can access the servers, so invest profit and buy bigger servers!
  No they will just keep the profit and milk the tax payer for every penny, it's a joke!

  25.9.2009 08:53 #14

• jimbo46

  bitching on a site like this does nothing, do you think that your legislators even read this let alone care about this site, the only way to answer this type of government activity is by the vote, not the bitch.

  25.9.2009 23:41 #15

• kscogg

  jimbo, i don't believe they were hoping to sway legislation here but rather vent frustration. that isn't taxable, at least right now.
  
  i love how america is to blame for everyone else's problems. when another countries' officials and leaders do something they don't agree with its THE AMERICAN INFLUENCE. give me a break.

  28.9.2009 19:00 #16