I'm a Swiss who grown up in Brazil, lived in Switzerland for five years, from 1992 to 1997, and now is back.

Back then I never heard of any television or radio tax, nobody informed me and I nobody never annoyed me about it.

When I was informed about the Billag taxes I was literally SHOCKED!!!

Anyway I accepted to pay the television tax, and didn't took the radio cause I don't have any and don't listen to.

Now I was reading in the newspaper that who has computers will have to pay the television tax cause of the high speed internet connections and even worst, that people who has computer already must pay the radio tax!!!

The television tax is already expensive, so paying a radio one too I find ridiculous!!!

Who set up this law? Can't we do a referendum or public voting to abolish it? Public television channels must survive by themselves with publicity and good televisions shows and sitcoms, not with the money of the people. Worst, actually they do both if you pay attention!!!

If some people have the same opinion that mine and want to change this absurd, I'm willing to participate in any action to change this, collecting signatures or something similar.

Hi Olivier,


Which newspaper did you read this in?

there is a thread on Billag with some details here

On the broadband issue, see my comment, and then followi Nathu's link in the following post.

I'm in Billag battle right now and find it preposterous.

It's outrageously expensive and not based on anything other than a revenue stream that someone appears to have "dreamt".

Further, I don't speak and German or Swiss German (yet) so the whopping three channels that would be available to me hold no interest and aren't supported by the tax anyway.

I have an alarm clock, a TV that is plugged to a dvd player for my kids and a car that has radio and a tv tuner. However, I just don't watch tv or listen to the radio and if I could disable the traffic announcements in my car, I would.

I talk to Swiss friends at work, and they hate this more than we do. I really admire the way Swiss infrastructure and government is run except for a few small anomalies such as this. I wish some level headed person would step in and bring some logic to the situation.

27/9/2007 - three months without paying so far. I'll be in cuffs soon enough...

Firstly, commiserations in the battle.

When you say that the channels aren't supported by the tax, do you know where the money does go?

If you have a stereo TV bought here, you can get various stuff in English by listening on sound channel B. This tends to be films and US soaps/crime series and can be found on on the Swiss French (TSR 1/2), Swiss German (SF1/2) and Swiss Italian (TSI 1/2)channels.

About the broadband television tax, I read it in the 20minutes free newspaper of Vaud. The source used by them is the FRCmagazine. This will start in January 2008.

Sorry, the article is in french
http://www.20min.ch/ro/rechercher/story/26886725

Cheers,
Olivier

Thanks Olivier. Judging by the comments to that article, there are some angry people out there. (Note that the article doesn't appear in the German version of 20 minutes.)

Here is the SRG SSR License Fee FAQ, available in the 4 Swiss languages and English.

This says to me that you have to pay the radio element if you have relevant software on your computer to allow listening.

The same goes for TV if you have the relevant software and a subscription for TV channels via an ISP.

Also note the last question on the FAQ page concerning those on benefits:

What happens if you are a visitor to Switzerland for a couple of months and buy a tv for the apartment you are living in to use whist you are there? Or drive around in a UK registered car with a radio? Should you have a licence?

The article isn't available in German because the information is from a French Swiss consumerism journal. There's no official statement from the federal office of communication. Also the 20 Minutes article cites a quote that the new tax would become effective in 2009...

To legally get rid of the radio fee on computers it suffices to not have streamradio programs installed... (And who's going to check this?)

By law, yes.

Buy a tv for the apartment you are living in to use whilst you are there? - Certainly.
Driving around in a UK registered car with a radio? - If resident, yes. But surely not if non resident . Otherwise you'd get Billag at the border with your motorway vignette .

Don't give them ideas

If you aren't paying any fees then they will chase you up.

About 3 days ago I got a more or less friendly letter from Billag asking if I wanted to register the use of a TV/radio and, if so, when did the usage start. This was after faithfully paying them the fees (or so I thought) since we moved to Switzerland.

It turns out that when my ex moved out 2 years ago, she transferred the original Billag registration to her new address. I didn't notice one bill less but Billag did spot a non-paying swiss household .

The less friendly part of the letter included highlighted words like "punishable" or "those failing to register can count on a fine up to CHF 5000". I've been honest with them about the 2 year gap so I'll have to see if they let me off with just the back-payments.

Update: got the Fr.1000 bill from them a couple of weeks later. That covers the back-payment and they didn't even charge any interest, which is unusual in Switzerland.

Since olivier.voutat's thread was merged into this one, this is an answer to his first post:

Like I said in the other thread, if you don't have a streamradio program on the computer, it is not liable for radio tax.

But your main problem is that while the height of radio and TV tax are subject to discussion, this:

is not the oppinion of the Swiss majority. The public TV channels are subject to stricter advertising rules and must perform certain duties, to inform about news and politics and news in Switzerland. Also it is seen as an important gesture that the Swiss German part subsidises the public French and Italian speaking TV and radio stations.

The problem is that this so-called "service public" will never be performed by the foreign competition from the neighboring countries. They couldn't care less about Switzerland in their news and general program, even the relatively big Swiss German part is just an insignificant appendage of the German market. Well the German stations run some Swiss advertisement windows but that's about it.

You won't change the advertisement conditions either because a new Radio and TV legislation became recently effective. My advise is to join a consumer protection organisation, they'll organise protests and political pressure and guide you to the battlefields of the hour (probably Billag tax on MP3 players and TV tax on computers).

Okay, now what about private competition from Switzerland? After all, the new radio and TV law provides them with a small slice of the radio/TV tax, too! But it's not so simple. The few efforts to establish a private national TV channel went belly-up after a few years each so far... 3 Plus TV is still running but their program, especially the rip-off quizes, are a disgrace for Swiss media. The regional TV stations on the other hand usually loop a 1h program and aren't very interesting advertising mediums (to my knowledge Tele Züri is the only one whose market share exceeds 0.1%).

And private radios are confronted with a difficult situation, too: The federal office of communication doesn't hand out nation-wide concessions to privates, so there isn't really space for niche music. So the regional radios usually opt for hardcore mainstream music to survive and can't compete with innovative concepts. The administrative decisions of the federal office of communication are very difficult to influence from outside.

Hmm. Thought i'd look into the Billag business as a large fine would really b***er things up for us and it gives a monthly breakdown and a 'trimester' breakdown. Now, each post that mentions how often you pay says it's quarterly. Just how often do they expect you to cough up and is it possibly to pay monthly?
We've been on cablecom digital for a few months now and no letter from them yet...

From my experience, you can arrange to pay them monthly as a one-off (I had some hefty medical bills to cope with at the time), but I had to fight for that, and once I paid the first month, they sent me a letter oh-so-nicely thanking me, and demanding the rest within 7 days, or they'd send me a Betreibung.

This fine thing appears to be new. The advice I got just over 7 years ago was to wait for them to find me, and they did as soon as I installed a phone at home.

However, they have apparently started an advertising campaign, and you can find the videos here.

The first one on that list is completely dire. I wish you luck trying to make sense of it. Oh, and for Mac users, it's in the wonderful .WMV format , so you need the likes of VLC to view it.

Interestingly enough, here in Denmark we have identical system. Here we only have one language and no solidarity issues (german/italian/french issue). We pay about 280 euro a year. They recently rebranded it a "media license" so it also covers people with cell phones and internet access.

No big deal, really.

Morgan

ps. we pay 40-68% income tax, so i'd definatly like to trade with anyone in CH

Ja & car import tax is frightening ...
I feel your pain in an empathetic way. Friend of mine lives in Mälmo & he is always telling me about the amount of Danes living is Southern Sweden.

Car taxes are beyond brutal. I paid 67.000e for a BMW 318i with steptronic and some extras.

Im looking forward to opening my business in Geneva

M

A update on the Billag thing, after taking some professional advice.

• If you live in a hotel for longer than 3 months, you are deemed to be a long term resident, and become liable for your own Billag bill (even though the hotel is already paying the applicable fees).
• Legal action in the event of non payment comes in the name of the Swiss Confederation. Billag are just their agents.

In the UK, if your address is unlicensed you'll get a warning letter over and over even if you don't own a TV etc.

My mate tells me he's never ever received anything from Billag, although the fact it's a holiday place might put it off their radar. I wouldn't recommend avoiding it though.