duffer

Does anyone know if and when people will be forced to pay the Canone Rai via your electricity bill?

There was a recent proposal that the TV licence should be paid together with your luce bill, the theory that if you've got electricity you're also bound to have a TV. It would also be up to you to prove that you don't have a TV rather then the other way round.

37100

Heard that too Duffer, but for this year at least, the renewal slip arrived in the post box.

Isakat

Good idea, everyone should pay their TV licence, maybe then the trash on Italian TV can be improved?
We pay it every January even though we do not watch Italian TV.

Mr Posh

Well Good for you

Isakat

I was going to post a comment to Mr Posh's post, but then accidentally saw the karma I have been sent by people and the message that comes up when clicking on the boxes, so changed my mind.

duffer

I don't pay it along with the 30% of the population who don't either. The idea is that if everyone pays they will lower the canone. Yeah that's really likely to happen isn't it? Better to send Rai to the dogs and make them private. That way we can get rid of the canone that is currently funding the geniuses creating the programming.

Isakat

In a regulated society the TV licence should help towards creating new programmes and improving the quality of what people watch. We paid the BBC licence because we got a good quality TV while living in the UK.
Maybe in Italy it ends in the pockets of a few fat cats-like everything else I suppose.
I do not hold higher moral ground at all by paying it, maybe I live in an idealistic world where I like to respect rules( wrong country to live in with these beliefs I know!)
I suppose it is the same with the charity money I give each year towards building new schools in Nepal-I just hope it does not end in the pockets of individuals.
I do not condone anyone who does not pay, after all while in Rome do as the Romans do. However, do we want to create another Mediaset by privatising Rai and another Berlusconi just to avoid paying 115 euro a year?

Lorna at Vicenza

Were that true, we'd all be trying to avoid paying out as much as we could get away with.

duffer

At the end of the day this is a TV tax. If the BBC can get by (to a certain extent) with no advertising in the UK and still offer, besides the normal TV, all the digital services, the iPlayer, great children's programming, learning services on the internet in various languages then they must be doing something right (although they waste A LOT of money too) and I'm all too happy to pay the LICENCE.

I just think it's a very sneaky way to get people to pay up.

What I would like to know is if the 30% that don't pay don't pay because they try to avoid paying any taxes whenever possible or they geniunely feel its unfair to fund Rai for the service they get? Because many people are more than happy to pay Sky for their services.

37100

You can't pick and choose what you like and don't like about Italian laws. Your here, so you should stick to the rules. Otherwise you should just drive straight through motorway toll booths. I mean, we pay road tax, don't we? Or, why pay the hospital ticket? You don't in the UK and other regions of Italy. Like it or not. €100.50 for bad, very bad TV is payable. I pay and I never, never watch RAI.

duffer

Yes I agree with you. However in the case of the TV License, apparently 1 in 3 people don't pay. I feel it would be better if Rai made improvements to their service so that people would be less inclined to avoid paying it rather than Rai finding ways to force people to pay it.

37100

Nah. People would just say, 'never paid it so why start now?' My personal pet hate is 'passo carraio' tax.

LivingHere

After this, I think that the TV licence is worth the money

http://www.striscialanotizia.mediase..._01_poli25.flv

Isakat

pugliese

I know that a lot of Italians don't pay the canone, but if Rai was so lax in the past, they shouldn't wonder. When we moved to Milan from Germany, our furniture lorry was stopped at the border in Switzerland until we had paid the canone! Then when we bought our holiday home in my name in Gallipoli to save on the taxes (prima casa), a postcard arrived from the Rai saying I should quote the number of contract I have with them or pay for a new subscription. I quoted the Milan number and thought that was the end of the story, but then they wrote back saying I did not live there anymore (because I have my "residenza" in Gallipoli) and should pay for a new sub. At that stage I wrote back and said I do not have a TV in Gallipoli.

I don't mind paying for 1 subscription, but why should I pay for 2? My BIL has 2 houses and has never paid in his life.

Haven't heard anymore yet.