It is a good week in which to recall the origin of the phrase, “daylight robbery”. It goes back to 1696, when King William III of England declared a “window tax”, imposing a levy on any house with more than six windows. Naturally, the typical homeowner bricked up their windows, blocking the sunlight. For the next century-and-a-half, the government literally robbed the citizenry of its daylight.
This absurd tax came to mind on Tuesday, when deputy minister of communications Pinky Kekana included this choice line in her presentation to parliament’s portfolio committee on communications: “Regulation is needed on pay service providers like MultiChoice and subscription video-on-demand provider like Netflix to collect TV licence on behalf of SABC similar to municipalities collecting traffic fine….”
There you have it. Watching the SABC is equated with committing an offence. Even the current manner of collecting licence fees, through legal threats and debt collectors, positions errant citizens as criminals and thieves.
Many South Africans have opted out of this unseemly process by abandoning TV altogether, and relying on the likes of Netflix and Showmax, via computer, tablet and smartphone screen. This has proved most vexing to the SABC, which demands a level playing field, never mind the fact that taxpayers have already funded huge bailouts of the SABC. In October 2019, it received R2.1bn, and in March this year a further R1.1bn. In its annual report last year, the SABC said it collected R968m in licence fees, but that R116m of this went to collection costs. That’s a euphemism for abusive law firms and debt collectors pursuing people who have not paid their window, err, TV tax.
Very few of us have not had the experience of being threatened over the phone with fines and jail time. The law allows for a R500 fine or up to six months in prison per TV set that has not been paid. If you sell, give away or trash your TV set, the onus is on you to prove that disposal, via both documentation and affidavit. If the disposed TV set belonged to a deceased person in your household, you are going to have to produce a death certificate. And, even then, the debt collectors have been known to pursue the “criminals” beyond the grave.
Talk about a broken business model. Given how serious an offence it is to watch TV in this country, then, it is no surprise that the arrival of streaming video-on-demand services has been greeted with such enthusiasm by those South Africans who can afford both a monthly subscription and broadband internet. Even though they are paying four times over for this privilege: once each for the subscription cost of both internet and streaming service, and once each for the VAT on those services. Yes, Netflix is obliged to collect tax from South Africans, to be paid over to the SA Revenue Service.
Now, our modern King Williams want to add to that pain. History shows what a bad idea this is, and not only from the public response to the window tax. A few years after that, Queen Anne introduced a wallpaper tax, that applied to patterned or printed wallpaper. Naturally, the citizenry took to plain paper, which they decorated themselves. Later In the 18th century, King George III declared a glass tax, with weight of glass defining the cost. The hollow-stem glass industry boomed. And then, a century later, King George III tried a per-brick tax to fund his wars in the colonies. Suddenly, brick makers found that increasing the size of their product was rather popular with the masses.
One can imagine modern equivalents of these monarchs ordering their minions to find new ways to tax any joy they find in citizens’ lives. It was only a matter of time before streaming video attracted their attention. Next, expect games tax and, eventually, outdoor joggers’ tax.
There is one consolation, however. Spare a thought for the citizens of countries such as Greece, Italy, Pakistan, Portugal and South Korea. There, the TV licence fee is added to your electricity bill. Imagine if Eskom were also responsible for collecting TV licence fees? That would be taking daylight robbery into the night-time.
• Goldstuck is founder of World Wide Worx and editor-in-chief of Gadget.co.za
