Germany has begun requiring registration and taxation of all Internet users

Why bother ? Isnt tax evasion a European tradition

unfortunately it is, we already pay like 50% tax here

what a crock of shit im glad i dont live there

Haven't heard anything about it, doubt that it's true.

it's daffy but true!

what are they gonna do make people register microwaves next?

thats fucked.

http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=3712

The plan, long in the offing, was agreed in Berlin by the Conference of Prime Ministers of the Federal States of Germany on October 8. It is being billed as part of the expansion of the television and radio public services fee, which is administered by Germany?s Radio and Television Licensing Authority and enforced by the universally despised Gebühreneinzugszentrale (GEZ), which often resorts to controversial and illegal Gestapo-like methods of gathering information on private citizens.

The new tax was originally planned to come into effect on January 1, 2007. That date still holds for businesses and large corporations, but private households will be forced to register their PCs before the deadline of March 31, 2005. Owners must then pay 17.03 euros a month for their PC unless they are already complying with the full GEZ tax for a registered television and radio.

The decision has provoked howls of protest from the nation?s estimated one million Internet users who have eschewed the trashy sensationalism and state propaganda associated with the public broadcasters ARD and ZDF, both of which argue that their websites constitute a public service that Internet users are accessing free of charge. Technically speaking, they say in addition, anyone with an Internet-capable PC (whether actually connected to the Internet or not) can theoretically watch their broadcasts.

"With the same argument, the public broadcast services can demand from me a fee for the existence of my briefcase, because in principle it may contain an ARD television magazine that provides free viewing tips," says Arndt Groth, President of the Federal Association of Digital Businesses (BVDW). Groth?s comments, among others, have had lawyers frantically scanning the German Constitution for loopholes (notwithstanding the fact that the constitution, along with the Federal Republic of Germany itself, technically ceased to exist as a legal document on July 17, 1990).

Undaunted by the criticism that Germany is effectively nationalising private telecommunications in much the same way as Hitler did during his long reign of terror and in a style reminiscent of the taxes imposed on typewriters by the Communist Party in the former totalitarian German Democratic Republic, the Federal Minister for Culture, Christiane Weiss, has also signalled her intention of subjecting Internet-capable mobile phones to the new tax.

"Cultural sovereignty is not to be interfered with," she warned owners of PCs and mobile phones who may consider taking the matter to the European Courts. In a lengthy communications directive issued at the end of September, she defended the massive state subsidies to public broadcasters against advocates of a more free-market approach to the German media, implicitly threatening the EU?s monopoly regulator with non-cooperation should a hearing be convened.

Tax-weary citizens who fail to pay the GEZ imposition or register a television or radio are liable to pay crippling fines amounting to thousands of euros and even face lengthy prison sentences. By law, individuals and businesses resident in Germany must register every television, video-recorder, DVD-player, radio, car radio and radio alarm-clock that they own, regardless as to their state of repair.

That list will surely grow longer once hectored members of the public have been goose-stepped into registering their personal computers and mobile phones for fear of the GEZ knock on the door.

total bullshit...

The GEZ wants fees for the public channels that I don't really watch, but I would have to pay for them because my TV is capable of receiving them.

I don't pay because I don't watch the channels but those tricky motherfuckers come to your door and try to gather infos and pretend to have rights they don't have.Their information gathering methods aren't also very legal, but whatever, just tell them to fuck off and that's about it.

GEZ is a private company, not associated with the country or states and their people that bother you are free workers getting paid per "signup".

Damn thats pretty fucked up.

what a messed up country!

Americans bitch about registering guns. Tvs, radios, and computers? That sounds like some bizarre shit left over from old nazi laws to me.

... when I was still living in germany I got a couple of visits from them, I remember one, the TV was running and you could actually see it from the door. the guy then asked me if I had a TV and I said NO ... he then said he just saw one and he can still hear one, I told him to see a doctor and closed the door ... that pretty much sums up the power of the german GEZ.

So what is it exactly they're taxing? The use of the internet?
Correct me if i'm wrong but Television Tax is a fee that goes to pay for the government run channels on free T.V...

I don't see any free German broadband/dial-up providers in Germany. So they can fuck right off.

that is some whacked out shit..... sounds like they are learning their tatics from hitler... or from directv!

these idiots have decide to collect money,
because of using the pc as radio or tv tuner ...
that's crazy !

that sucks. where'd they get the idea??

Crazy tax, but there's a difference. Germany is not a shithole and their taxed people get something in return of their money unlike most countries in the world.

... germany is europe's most overestimated country, it's trading power is currently at the second last position in europe.

their trading power doesn't come in contract with what I said.

Funkmaster why did you become a prick?

This world keeps getting stranger and stranger...

If they would release microwaves which have tv tuners in them, yes... sadly...

GEZ is a bunch of crap but it sadly exists to finance the government controlled radio and tv statios. Of course, you have no choice, you HAVE to get them when you have a tv, so you have to pay..

I'm hating it...

More and more people started watching TV on their PCs, thats why they invented this.

Can any German webmasters answer wether this is true... I was told by the MD of BMW Australia that Germans have to pay a fee depending on the size of their roofs. Apparently it has something to do with the rain water running from the roof into the storm water system