Are you people being taxed just for having an internet connection and using it? Besides your monthly fee to the company which provides your connection, i mean and totally irrelevant to the service...

In Finland there is a head tax, if you breathe, you must pay. The money from that is used to cover the state's expenses in multi media (TV, radio, internet). That is the nearest thing we have unless you count VAT, which is part of the charges for the internet connection.

Specifically for the internet usage?

No 'internet tax' as such, no.

What happened with that other thread by the same or a similar name?

Anyway, in Germany anyone who owns at least one TV set or radio has to pay a radio and TV license fee that helps to finance public broadcasting channels (as opposed to those that are owned by private corporations and mainly financed by commercials), regardless of whether you're watching / listening to public channels or not. If you have the means to do it, it is assumed you might do that occasionally. At some point, this fee was extended to everyone having internet connection, because in theory you can now watch or listen to public programs online, so it's assumed you do. I guess it's also much easier to prove that someone has internet access than to prove that someone owns a TV or a radio.

The fee is somewhat controversial. On the one hand, because the public channels officially have the mission to promote art and culture, movies, documentaries etc., but often you get the impression they put more store in competing with the private channels for audience share, by broadcasting sports, crime series, mindless entertainment shows, soap operas and folk music of the trivial kind (popular among the elderly). The art and infotainment stuff is often pushed into the late hours when most viewers are sleeping. On the other hand, many people would say that they are not interested in that art stuff and that the private channels are better at entertainment, or that they don't watch television or listen to radio at all, despite having the means to do it, and therefor see no reason to pay the fee.

I'd give you an answer but in all honesty,why should I bother?

In the UK we are just thankful to get any internet at all. BT has a monopoly on the lines, and does everything possible to keep us in the dark ages. Not even going to talk about the lack of anyG phone connection which appears to only happen right next to the hub in London. So in essence around 50% of a bill goes to BT.

If you just had a brand new government agency to oversee it all. Maybe you could get a better deal. I mean, establishing an entire new branch of government with thousands of employees, all working hard to make sure no evil corporations dick you out of another pound for using a service that you agreed to.

Keep in mind, that new internet government security agency is also going to need its own legal department... human resources office, tech and industry support, a lobbying team, several hundred call center reps, and at least a hundred PR agents to assist in citizens concerns and public relations management.

I'm sure all those new taxes you'd have to pay would totally be worth the effort.

Well, don't we pay "VAT" for all services, including haircuts, internet etc.? Or what was asked again? EDIT: Ok maybe the OP didn't mean that, and considers it to be part of what one pays monthly to the internet operator.

To me the original question is a bit pointless, pretty much every transaction where money changes owners is taxed here, quite often many times (e.g. if you sell your house or apartment where you haven't lived yourself for man years, you will be paying tax for any increase on the value of the property, while the buyer will pay "varainsiirtovero" (money transfer tax?), unless it is their first home.

Are we now specifically talking about some tax on top of it, just for using internet? Comparing single taxes between countries is tricky because you'd have to count in all taxes related to that specific transaction or activity. E.g. what if your VAT + "internet tax" together is lower than the mere VAT (for paying for internet) in some other country?

When a state is running out of money, they are quick to come up with new kinds of taxes. In Finland especially car owners are a good target, we have lots of "temporary" taxes related to cars which have been temporary for several decades already. Also Finland had a "sugar tax" for some time, but apparently that was not deemed legit in some EU court so Finland had to pull it back. Last I heard the government decided to increase the fuel tax (for cars) in order to recoup that money that they can't get from sugar tax now. How convenient. :)

What I don't understand is, why is there a fee to use public radio and TV if they already have ads running. I would understand if there were no ads, but they are already making money from commercials. Never had this "tax" in Australia but it looks like at least Poland and Germany have to put up with this shit, Poland's already poor enough and they get taxed for so much shit here.

Not sure your point, we already have that, its called the EU?

We have that "public TV tax" too in Finland, and those (YLE) channels don't have any commercials.

The commercial channels with ads are not financed through that tax, they are financed through the commercials.

As someone mentioned, one idea behind such national channels is that they are supposed to promote arts, education (e.g. learning programs, or documentaries even about "boring" subjects), services to minorities e.g. news for the deaf (I've never seen such on the commercial TV channels (not enough viewers I guess), albeit I am unsure how much deaf people nowadays need TV news with sign language when they could just as well read subtitles or read the news from internet, but maybe the sign language programs help them train their sign language skills then, and for hearing people too...), or news in the Saami minority language (the Laplanders living in the north) etc.

Commercial channels, on the other hand, concentrate more on stuff that gathers lots of viewers. Popular TV series, sports events, movies etc. Some of that stuff on the national channels too, but usually meant to somehow cater for the ideals mentioned above.

So I personally feel there is some justification for such tax-financed national TV channels, or nowadays also internet services. Some people complain that the programs on the national channels are not as interesting as on commercial channels, but those people completely miss the point. That's like complaining that going to school is not as much fun as staying home playing video games. It is not a popularity contest between the two.

The national (tax-financed) TV channels have a societal mission or purpose, while the commercial channels only have a purpose of making their owners as much money as possible. Both are needed, for different purposes.

It is actually worse than that. At the present every household has to pay this fee, regardless of the posession of any TV, radio, computer or internet connection, leading to absurd situations in wich people suddenly had to pay for services they could not use in any form. Much like a tax, but oficcially it isn't one.
This fee earns the public channels and broadcasters around eight to nine billion Euros annually, which are used for buying much to expensive broadcasting licenses for sports ect. and producing terrible shows with terrible Schlager music.

So, a head tax, just like in Finland. A tax one has to pay to be allowed to live in a certain place.


But more strictly ON topic, I am sure i read somewhere about a country with a tax specifically added to internet and mobile connections. The reason such a tax is rare is because it hurts the national economy more than it helps the state coffers.

It was Hungary, a country within EU going the way of Erdoğan's Turkey, Putin's Russia and Hitler's Nazi Germany.