PiS to force every hard working, low earning Polish family to pay for TV

I'd actually very much like to see a tax on people who don't bother to vote.

That only shows how very little you know about taxation. In fact you already pay tax for every day you live unless you can produce your own food in which case you could more or less avoid buying the necessary stuff to keep you alive. And it is not only "they should tax all adults" meaning perhaps "they in Poland should", but it happens everywhere in each more or less developed country. The indirect tax (VAT) is now the major source of budget revenue in the developed countries at least, bigger than direct taxation, and you pay it almost on every day as you live on.


That tax in the form of a fine already exists in Belgium.

Which is why it's perfectly legal in the eyes of the law. I might not agree with it, but there's nothing illegal about it.


And people like me that own a large TV but never watch live TV - I only ever watch documentaries and other interesting programmes through catch-up TV, never anything on live TV. Or I use it to play games on - I don't even have a TV aerial connected, nor am I connected to any sort of cable system. Plenty of people are similar - live TV just isn't worth watching. Why bother, when Netflix, Youtube, on-demand services and a few others provide all you can possibly want?

I'm not your daddy, I'm not responsible for that legislation. Seems to me that you would have to pay that tax like everybody else.

Lots even. We don't even have a TV set at all.

See, what gets me is that you're openly supporting legislation that will hurt hard working, low earning families the most. 10zł a month might be nothing for members of this forum, but it's a lot of money to someone that has very little.

The key word here is ... allegedly. Let see what will happen, we are getting ahead of ourselves, I doubt my opinion here or anybody's else has any bearings on decisions and legislation undertaken by the government.

I shall remind you that up to now the licence has been 21,50 a month. How is the reduction of this to 10 zl a month is going to hurt "hard-working, low-earning families the most" is subject to another long-running, interesting debate on the PolishForum.

Hard-working, low-earning families could choose to do what I do (and what Harry does, and Jon, and Roger, and others...) and not watch live TV and not pay for a licence. Now they're going to be forced into paying for TV that they might not even have.

No matter how you dress it up, this is a tax increase on the poorest.

hard-working, low-earning families the most

Because Delphi and his pals he mentioned above have there income decreased to the lowest level since english teaching has become a loosers profession in Poland.

Unfortunately, nearly all of the poorest people tend to have a TV set at home (if they didn't, they wouldn't be "the poorest", wouldn't they :-). If you, Harry, Jon, Roger could afford the privilege of not watching TV programmes at home, you would now be taxed 10 ZL a month for having this privilege of yours. Thus the poorest will get a tax decrease of more than 50%, while the loudmouth, posh people of the expat community will just get a tax increase, no matter how much they would like to dress it up in the reverse on the PolishForum .

Nice try Ziemowit, but the likelihood is that the poorest aren't paying for the licence anyway.

...I wonder if anyone on here actually pays for it?

I certainly don't, I have no need to pay it.


And one you clearly are not capable of joining.

And one you clearly are not capable of joining.

Agreed 100% as its too low for my level.

"On here" probably very few as the forum is dominated by self-adulating, self-indulgent, stuck-up expat loudmouths.

What's wrong, Polonius? You used to be so vocal about how PO were allegedly costing families money, but you seem rather quiet on this matter.

Yeah, business as normal, its almost always the poor getting screwed over the most.

What's wrong is that a*sehole Tusk publicly stated that no-one pays the TV tax and many people stopped paying. If the head honcho said that then why should we...., etc., etc.?

Up till then all decent law-abiding Poles dutifully paid the modest fee. This is not some new tax as PO toadies allege, only the reinstitution of a time-honoured procedures informally and illegally aborted by the PO regime.

Modest fee for who? Maybe 10zł/month is nothing for you, but that can provide dinner for a poor family. You should be absolutely ashamed of yourself for suggesting that poor struggling families should be forced into paying "modest fees".


Of course it's a new tax. How else can you explain everyone being forced to pay 10zł a month?

How interesting that Polonius has stopped caring about "hard working, low earning" families as soon as PiS want to charge them.

I still believe that if a person can prove that they DO NOT have a TV or a radio, they should not be forced to pay this tax. I will argue this case with my local electricity supplier if ever they try and put 10 pln on my bill.

If this is a general tax payable by everyone then it should not be called 'TV tax' but by another name. Perhaps 'fees for over-blown, flash-in-the pan TV artists'?

Have they changed that? Used to be only those with a TV set or radio paid the fee. The problem is how to prove it other than having an inspector visit your flat. The honour system? A sense of honour is quite rare in modern times, it's every man for himself.

PiS are proposing to change it so that every single person pays. Hence, it's an extra tax on hard working, low earning Polish families that you claim to defend so much.


It's actually very easy to do - you can simply require the use of a special card to access television, like with satellite or cable television. If you don't pay, you have no access to TV. Add the fee automatically to cable/satellite subscriptions, while those viewing on ordinary TV through an aerial would have to contact TVP to obtain the card.

A subscription-based model is fair and ensures that anyone watching live Polish TV has to pay the yearly fee.

Terri, if you can receive TV or radio on your phone, they'll probably say you have to pay.

A TV-radio fee has been around for years -- only expat foreigners are discovering something "new" (only to them). And the fee is not exorbitant.

What is exorbitant are utlity bills -- gas, electricity, water are among the highest in Europe, but wages are not.

Polonius, stop trying to confuse the issue. There hasn't been a mandatory tax on all residents of Poland before.


Easy for you to say in your villa. Much harder to say if you're a hard working, low earning family.

The radio-TV fee was paid by everyone because almost no-one lacked at least a wireless receiver. So how much is that "exorbitant" tax a year?

And since when are the greedy, arrogant pro-corporate elitists so concerned about Poland's little guy? Only if it can be used to clobber PiS, you f*cking hypocrites!

>>>>Terri, if you can receive TV or radio on your phone, they'll probably say you have to pay.
But I have a telephone which is about 10 years old which does not have this facility.

Of course, you're paying for the programming beamed by the broadcasters regardless of how you receive it -- even by carrier piegeon if that were possible.

Recently, my carrier pigeons went on strike - they want more feed. I told them where to go.
So I am scarpered - no phone, no TV, no radio, no pigeons....do I still have to pay the 10 pln a month?

If it were up to me the answer would be a resounding NO! On the othe hand 10 zł (a mere $2.50) a month is chicken feed. Just drink a six-pack of VIP lager less a month.