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Comment by TheRealPomax | Hacker News Reader

You mean "how much money is given to people to do those things"? Because the money doesn't magically disappear in the pockets of "big beeb", all those tasks are performed by people who get paid for that, drawing an income and then spending the money they earned by economically participating in society.

There is no money being wasted. Although it might certainly be a case of paper being wasted.

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The UK government/BBC is happy to give £91m/year to Crapita to administer the TV License [0], and there are a bunch of other contractors [1]. Almost 100 million pounds wasted that could be spent on programming, but instead go to private businesses. Instead, the UK government could just directly fund the BBC out of taxes. Even if it might require a small increase of the tax rate, they could save on the enforcement and tracking.

[0] https://www.capita.com/news/capita-announces-five-year-exten...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_the_Un...

> Almost 100 million pounds wasted that could be spent on programming

That's kinda assuming that everybody would continue to pay the license fee if the enforcement was stopped.

I have no clue how much revenue the TV licenses generate, or whether 100 million for administration and enforcement is a reasonable number. It feels unlikely to me?

Google google google:

  In 2021, there were 24.8 million households in England
  The TV licence fee is currently £159 a year

So there'd be 4,000 million or so in revenue if every household paid for the license (more including the rest of the UK). I _guess_ maybe 2.5% isn't a unreasoable number for administration and enforcementment? It's better that, say, Apple taking 30%...

They're saying it would be cheaper to just have the government, which already has a whole apparatus for calculating, collecting, and enforcing tax, fund the BBC directly. So there would be no TV license.

removing red tape is for business, not consumers!

My jurisdiction finally got rid of annual/biannual car registration fees and stickers. Was a rather pointless process other than collecting money.

Was hoping they'd raise gas taxes by 0.1cents/litre or something, but I guess they buried it in with other taxes.

Unfortunately, we still require driver's license renewals every 5 years for CAD$90. And they don't bother taking a picture with every renewal because that was too much bureaucracy for them. I think it's only once I'm 80 they'll haul me in for a cognitive test.

All the money being spent on enforcement is being wasted, if the alternative is just to raise general taxes by the same amount and fund it from that.

So yes, of course there is absolutely money being wasted in this comparison.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window

Perhaps we should also have a mandatory fee paid to the thumb twiddling association? They too will be happy to be employed after all.

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