The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Continued......

Being in the USA, I am not accustomed to the very high tax rate that was apparently in place in the 1930s thru 1950s in the UK. Reading the catalog prices in the Expert brochures, it is apparent that this tax was on the order of 50% to 60% and higher on the purchase price of the item. Was this tax on all purchased goods or just on certain items such as radio and electronic products? And some of the Expert products were listed as "tax-free". How was this done? I remember reading that one had to pay a yearly "use" tax or "license" fee on radio equipment in the UK some years ago. Are such high tax rates and fees still in application today in the UK?

Greg

The UK current "Value Added Tax" (VAT) rate which applies to virtually everything apart from books and children's clothes is 20%. Food does not attract VAT for the consumer but applies to retailers unless you buy cooked or "heated" food in which case VAT is applicable to the "service" and "energy costs" involved in the process. VAT on energy is currently 5%, that is for the domestic consumer of gas and electricity. Import Duties are 3% on a lot of items brought into the UK from outside the corrupt European Union.

Remember that in the UK we have to pay for 50 years of incompetent governments, wastage, costly financial mistakes and we have to line the pockets of those we sold all our assets and industries to!

UK Plc has been a joke for a very long time.

If the EU gets its way (and when does it fail?) our VAT rate would be closer to 25%!

As for the 50% VAT you mention (or "Purchase Tax" as it was known), I believe this applied to most things in the same way as the current 20% rate does.

Greg,
remember that European governments had hundreds of years head start over the USA to invent all kinds of taxes and fees. New taxes and fees are still being added, few to none are ever retired. In Germany they still had special taxes on sugar and salt until 1993, which went back hundreds of years. Also in Germany there is a broadcast tax (Rundfunksteuer) which you have to pay for every radio receiver and TV. This has strange effects, like you can't really legally bring a radio to your work place, because then your employer would have to pay the tax for you.
Like here in the US there is a whole industry that evolved around taxes and how to understand, pay, or avoid them.
Andreas

I remember reading that one had to pay a yearly "use" tax or "license" fee on radio equipment in the UK some years ago. Are such high tax rates and fees still in application today in the UK?

Sorry, I missed this question earlier. Yes, we still have to pay a TV Licence Fee for the pleasure of the BBC corporation. This also covers the radio and any device that can receive live streaming TV pictures. I think the licence fee is a bit outdated and unfair in this day and age although I support the lack of advertising that the BBC operates without. Commercial stations are very hard to watch if you don't want annoying adverts spoiling your programs every five to ten minutes.

The TV licence is required for watching or recording live TV on any device in the UK. The cost is £145.50 per year, currently capped until 2016 by a government who isn't particularly friendly to the BBC.
If you only have a radio, only watch DVDs, only watch catch-up TV (iPlayer etc not live) then a TV licence is not required.

All the money goes to the BBC for TV (8 channels, most currently or imminently available in HD), radio (10 national, many local, + BBC World Service), on-line including digital/interactive/catch-up etc. Money earned by its commercial arm (BBC WorldWide; BBC America being one of their operations) through the re-selling of programme rights, merchandise etc goes into the pot too. The BBC used to own its broadcasting infrastructure, but it was forced to sell it off and now pays the private operator who bought it all for the privilege of broadcasting on what used to be its transmitters.

The commercial channels don't show as many adverts as Steve thinks...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television ... ed_Kingdom
...and nearly half the homes in the UK own a digital recorder so can skip the adverts if they really want to.

Sorry for going way way off topic. The purchase tax rate on luxury items in the past is truly staggering. For most of my life, VAT has been 15% and the current 20% rate comes as a bit of a shock. I can't imagine it at 50%! Especially at a time when people were relatively much poorer. The prices and affordability are astounding - though I tend to forget the cheaper machines which were more affordable back then, but of much less interest today (if they survive at all).

Cheers,
David.

.and nearly half the homes in the UK own a digital recorder

Well I'm pleased to say I don't even know what one of those is, so obviously I'm in the half that doesn't own such a device!

2Bdecided wrote: If you only have a radio, only watch DVDs, only watch catch-up TV (iPlayer etc not live) then a TV licence is not required.

I've had three telly-free periods in my life, and in practice you get hounded by the TV licensing authority, who seem to be incapable of believing that anyone can live without a telly. Also it's not whether you actually watch live TV it's the fact that you've got equipment that enables you to. A computer would probably come into this category.

I'm not against the license fee, IMO it's worth it just for Radio 3. Compare the output there with Radio France Musique, who have the annoying habit of abruptly cutting off the end of pieces in order to play the news on time.

Steve wrote:

.and nearly half the homes in the UK own a digital recorder

Well I'm pleased to say I don't even know what one of those is, so obviously I'm in the half that doesn't own such a device!

I got one when I switched to BT internet, my previous supplier, Waitrose put the band width charges up extortionately.

The good thing about it is that if you pause a programme for say ten minutes, you can then skip through all the adverts. The only reason I got the package was to watch the cycling grand tours. This year I watched most of the Giro, Tour de France and some of the Vuelta.