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I've read this same article for the past 10 years now and every time I ask the question: what about fees and taxes Europeans pay apart from their bill? The US s
by zwieback 14y ago
I've read this same article for the past 10 years now and every time I ask the question: what about fees and taxes Europeans pay apart from their bill? The US system is horrible but I think for a complete picture it would be good to know exactly what taxes and fees pay for the infrastructure in other countries.
As a kid in Germany every household with a radio or TV had to pay a fee to operate those devices and there was a constant barrage of ads reminding new households to register and pay up. I'm assuming there are also other taxes that flow into building communications networks in Europe.
- mmanfrin 14y agoA similar thing happens with the discussion about gas prices, except the schema is reversed. In Europe, infrastructure fees are paid at the pump. In the US, a lot of our income taxes go to paying for those road fees and maintenance.
- nowarninglabel 14y agoI was a bit skeptical that road costs took a lot of our income taxes, so I looked it up. It was, at least, more than I thought it'd be. The U.S. will spend $65.3 billion of income tax payments on ground transportation costs in fiscal 2012, at least half of which is on highway costs.
- twoodfin 14y agoWhere do you get that figure? Does "ground transportation" include rail? Wikipedia saith that, as of 2007, 93.5% of the Federal contribution to the Interstate Highway System was funded by gas and vehicle taxes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highways#Financing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highways#Financing And it notes that 1/6th of gas taxes and other user fee-like financing mechanisms are diverted toward public transit.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- bduerst 14y agoYou both could be right.
- nowarninglabel 14y agoSorry for not looping back earlier, it's from http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/united_states_total_spending_pie_chart#download http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/united_states_total_spen... which is getting its data from a few sources but I think for the transportation piece you can look on page 125 here http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BUDGET-2012-BUD/pdf/BUDGET-2012-BUD.pdf http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BUDGET-2012-BUD/pdf/BUDGET-2012... but may want to cross-reference with the other sources.
- gxs 14y agoNot trolling here, genuinely curious: I thought that our 19 cents/gallon tax on gasoline is what is used for road repairs etc. Is this not the case?
- luser001 14y agoMaybe you can start digging from here: See here: https://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/newsgraphics/2011/0119-budget/ https://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/newsgraphics/2011/0119... And here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_States#Federal_taxes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_State... $25 billion received via gas taxes at the federal level in 2006 (60% spent on roads). $70 billion spent by feds in 2012.
- joshuahedlund 14y agoIn theory, yes. But it hasn't been raised since the 90's and since it's a per-gallon tax and not a percent tax, its funding has decreased as Americans buy more efficient cars and thus fewer gallons of gas. I don't have links, but I've seen graphs indicating that the fund regularly runs at a shortfall now, and getting worse.
- MichaelSalib 14y agoIn practice, the gas tax covers only a small portion of road maintenance costs. http://www.subsidyscope.com/transportation/direct-expenditures/highways/funding/analysis/ http://www.subsidyscope.com/transportation/direct-expenditur...
- colomon 14y agoI think pricing for a lot of things has a large component of historical pricing in it. My favorite example: the price of books in the US and Canada. Just grabbed a random recent hardcover off my shelves. It's labeled "USA $25.95 Canada $32.50". I believe that price differential got established back when the US dollar was worth $1.25 Canadian -- but it still exists, even though the two currencies are now roughly on par. It's the exact same product with what is effectively a 25% markup for Canadians for no good reason.
- bencxr 14y agoThis may be true to some degree, but I suspect less than it would suggest. Not all the bookshops follow the price on the cover.
- colomon 14y agoTrue, but that's true in the US too. Unless you're suggesting many bookstores in Canada routinely offer a 25% discount on most books, my point still holds.
- haugstrup 14y agoYou're comparing apples and oranges. The TV licenses are funding for the public broadcasters to provide programming. They do not go towards laying cables into people's home for cable tv reception and do not fund cell phone towers. It is quite irrelevant to bring into this issue. In American terms: The TV license pays for PBS programming, it's not a subsidy for Comcast to lay cables.
- zwieback 14y agoThanks - did not know that.
- jcampbell1 14y agoHow is that different, from the US system? We pay cable companies $80/month, and they pay $60 to content producers. Does it really matter that Downton Abbey is publicly (ITV) funded, and Breaking Bad is privately (FX) funded? The £145.50/year UK color TV licensing fee must be included when comparing costs.
- malsme 14y agoNot quite right. For the UK, £300 million of the licence fee budget (over the next couple of years) will pay for the roll out of high speed internet to rural communities. I doubt the BBC wanted to do it, but it looks like they'll be subsidising ISPs. http://www.bbc.co.uk/ariel/19181454 http://www.bbc.co.uk/ariel/19181454
- X-Istence 14y agoNo such fees and taxes on radio or TV in The Netherlands, income tax was raised a little when it was abolished, but income tax compared to the US is already higher due to the amount of social net that exists for the Dutch populace. The amount of fees and the costs I pay in America versus what I would pay in The Netherlands is absolutely mind-boggling.
- threedaymonk 14y ago> The amount of fees and the costs I pay in America versus what I would pay in The Netherlands is absolutely mind-boggling. Are you including health insurance? I'm pretty sure that I'm paying significantly less in taxes in the UK than I would be in the US with federal and state taxes plus health insurance. Your employer might pay for health insurance, of course, but someone is paying.
- X-Istence 14y agoI was referring to the fees and costs associated with a mobile phone plan.
- yaantc 14y agoFees are already included in the given price. One example is $38 per month for triple play in France. This is actually 30 € all taxes included.
- Kell 14y agoYes, but I think he's speaking about some other taxes, like the infamous (to french people) "redevance audiovisuelle". The ~120€ tax that you pay annually for owning a tv set. But actually, here in France, this tax only subsidize the French Movie Industry and the Public TV Channels (Fr2, Fr3, Fr4, FrO, Tv5, France24 etc.), not the broadband connection. Still, the broadband connection is subsidized by the gov, so somewhere there are taxes being collected to pay for it. But does it justify the 4 fold price markup in the US ? I don't think so.
- sigil 14y agoWhat about fees and taxes Europeans pay apart from their bill? I'd also like to see a fairer comparison here. If telecommunications infrastructure in these leading countries was subsidized by tax dollars, as the following article suggests they were, those payments should also be figured into the price of internet. These numbers are harder to get, but you're right that omitting them is disingenuous. http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/the-broadband-gap-why-do-they-have-more-fiber/ http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/the-broadband-gap-w...
- hartez 14y agoCan't watch the video right now, but the summary at the bottom mentions France and Bulgaria - does it bother to mention the geographic differences between the US and those countries? I feel like a broken record every time this discussion comes up, but no comparison is complete without addressing the differences in geographic distance and population density that US providers are dealing with.
- argv_empty 14y agoThat would explain why rural areas are expensive, but that excuse doesn't really carry over to urban areas in the US (where it is also expensive).
- dalke 14y agoEvery analysis I've seen does compare geographical differences, and finds that that's not a major factor. If that was a big factor then you would expect that either 1) the US northeast is a hotspot of cheap high-speed internet, or 2) there are no regional providers and the national providers are required to have the same coverage for all their customers. This is not the case. Why doesn't NYC have 100 MBit to the home, when Singapore (population 5 million) does, and can get it for US$50/month? Looking now, Cablevision serves the New York tri-state area. Their fastest rate is $45/month for "50 Mbps for downloads and up to 8 Mbps for uploads." Comcast has a much larger range. They offer 50 Mbit for $115/month and 100 MBit for $200/month. Telia is a Swedish ISP. They offer 100Mbit for $50/month and 100/100 for $60. That's for the cities. So we see that a Swedish ISP can provide higher bandwidth, for cheaper, than two of the ISPs in the biggest metro area in the US. I then pulled up Telia's numbers for the town of Skurup, population 10,000 in the Swedish countryside. They are limited to 30Mbit, also for about $50/month. The south of Sweden is densely packed, for Sweden, with 290 people/sq mi in the county. The country is 54/sq. mil. That's about the same density as Pennsylvania. Is it possible to get 100 megabit to your home in Pittsburgh? For under $100/month? Likely not. Why not, when it is possible in mid-sized Swedish cities?
- scaphandre 14y agoI pay around $10/month for phone line and around $10/month for unlimited 8mb adsl internet in the UK (annoyingly, I'm just out of fibre region where it would be faster). I'm not aware of paying anything extra for fees, nor being forced ads.
- keithpeter 14y agoUK: The TV licence costs £145.50 per year. The bulk of this goes to the BBC to produce TV and radio programmes and to operate their network of transmitters. None of this money is going for Internet connectivity to homes so far as I am aware. The 'local loop' to the home is provided by Openreach(BT) who have to make connections available to any company at an appropriate rate. There are also cable TV networks in many towns and cities. http://www.superfast-openreach.co.uk/where-and-when/ http://www.superfast-openreach.co.uk/where-and-when/ My postcode says 'not currently in plans for rollout' so we are stuck on ADSL over copper for the foreseeable future.
- antidoh 14y agoOK, but we generally can't get foreign speeds at any price. It seems that other countries are getting something for what they pay, whether retail or by tax.
- Tichy 14y agoThat fee in Germany is not a connection fee, though. It is used to finance national television and radio. I still don't like it, and it has some scammy aspects.