Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Her Majesty's money

The Queen sent me a check today. It came out of the blue and arrived in an unmarked envelope. I almost threw it out when the letter said nothing but "Advanced Mail Second Class". What could I really expect? When I lived in the U.S., it was credit card offers, but they're not that popular here. It could be my bank offering me another obscure way of parting with my money. If history is any guide, that's nothing I'm particularly interested in.

It could also be the BBC that reminds me every six months that I must not watch TV without paying the license fee. I don't have a TV, but that doesn't mean that I'm not willing to contribute my share to let the BBC's develop its awesome programing. Radio 4 alone, which wakes me up every morning, is worth a fortune. But radio is not liable to the license fee. Listening is free.

Watching is also free, as long it is not the TV that holds your attention. I watch iPlayer frequently, a flash-based repository of BBC programing that gives new meaning to TV. Most shows stay on view-on-demand for seven days after they aired, and from time to time, old shows are resuscitated for a second chance at dazzling audiences. This is how I caught nearly all Top Gear episodes of the last four years. Though it's infinitely more convenient than the TV, Watching the iPlayer is free.

Real TV costs, but I have no idea how much. I remember getting nasty sounding letters from some licensing fee recovery agency right after I had moved in here, but I didn't pay them much mind. They were addressed to "Current Resident", which is not my name. I admit that I opened each letter in a fit of inexplicable curiosity but then tossed them without reacting to them. If someone can't go to the trouble of finding out my name, he or she can't be too serious about my money either – and certainly won't get it.

The Queen knows good manners. Her letter was addressed to me, personally and politely, my academic title showing in the address field. In the absence of a sensible return address or the name of the sender, it was still a highly suspicious mailing and could have been from anyone. Once I ripped it open, what fell into my hands were a few pages of tax advice and a refund check. I doubled over when I saw the amount, a couple weeks of rent.

What amazed me was not so much the amount. It wasn't even the check itself. What blew me over, what I hadn't expected in a hundred years, is that someone's actually counting. Income tax is exceedingly simple in the U.K. I have no idea how it works and I get by just fine. I barely know my tax rate, and I don't care. I'm not opposed to paying taxes is fine. As I see it, this money holds society together. What I really like and what I'm infinitely grateful for is that I don't have to deal with it.

Income tax is deducted automatically from your paycheck every month. The numbers are calculated according to some formula that either HR or the revenue service knows. The tax payer has to do nothing; unless one wants to claim exotic exemptions, there are no returns to file. I'm living a simple life, and I can't be bothered. I appreciate that everything is taken care of.

Tonight, I also appreciate that there's someone in some brightly lit but depressingly grey cubicle assiduously going over all the numbers in the database and figuring out if the deductions, exemptions and charged tax have been applied properly. If they haven't, as in my case, a check is sent, payable by Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs, also known as The Queen.

2 comments:

Dee said...

oh very nice. Tell me, if you have to pay a license fee for television, does it have as many advertisements as tv in the US?
I mean, what's the fee for anyway?

Andreas Förster said...

hard question, given that I don't have a TV ;-) The fee is for the BBC, which is essentially ad-free as far as I know. Then there are private stations. They don't receive money from the license fee and show advertisements like any other TV station. I only watch the BBC online and football in the pub.