Well, bless my barnacles. . .
A controversial broadband tax should be law before the next election, according to Minister for Digital Britain Stephen Timms.
Now there's a surprise. Didn't see that one coming.
The 50 pence a month tax applies to everyone with a fixed line telephone.
Speaking at a debate in London, Mr Timms said the tax will be presented to parliament as part of the Finance Bill.
So, £6 per year, doesn't sound that bad does it?
I'm betting any office will have to pay for each and every phone on their premises, even if it is on a switchboard. More cost which business won't have to bear, because it will be passed on to those who use their services or buy their products.
And what will the money be used for? Making sure everyone has broadband. The next stop will be a modem licence.
Why?
So they can get us all on to Cloud. That means that ALL your files, contacts, emails and browsing history will be centrally stored, and you'll only be able to access websites which the controllers feel is appropriate for you to access.
It's coming people, and it won't just be us, this will be global.
6 comments:
How long will it remain at 50p? Once the bill is in, no doubt it will rise dramatically to pay for the army of civil servants who will be recruited to collect this tax.
We're gonna be paying to be spied on!
Even ignoring that it won't stay at 50p for long, it's also unlikely to be removed once everyone is able to connect to "high speed" networks whatever they may be. I can't help but wonder if this isn't a headline for people to oppose so that something else gets ignored.
As for getting people on the cloud that's something that can be avoided at a grass roots level by groups running their own servers. It's stupidly easy and cheap to do these days and with IPv6 the fixed IP problem isn't an issue any more.
Sounds like a crazy conspiracy theory to me.
Everyones browsing history, contacts, emails, banking passwords and every detail of their personal lives etc in a central database owned and run by a private run for profit organisation?
I mean this kind of system would be every tyrannical goverments dream come true.
Just imagine what present day China could do to its citizens if it had that kind of total information on everyone?
But of course the UK goverment would not use a system like that against its own peoples surely?
Ok so they have already requested that all ISP's keep browsing histories and all telephone companies to keep call logs for at least 5 years already but thats for our security and potection isnt it?
hahahahahahahahaha
The way the Baroness Scotland story is blowing up I doubt Labour will survive till next June so I have my doubts they will get this crap on the statute book. However if they do get in a broadband tax the broadband license is sure to follow and the price will only go up and up.
No wonder McDoom wants broadband for all.
He already collects VAT on it. So for a £20/month connection, plus VAT at 17.5%, plus 50p, amounts to an effective VAT of 20%.
So much for Labour's pledge not to increase VAT!
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