RAI sees major drop in TV licence fee evasion
February 10, 2017
From Branislav Pekic in Rome
Evasion of the TV licence of Italian state broadcaster RAI has fallen dramatically from 30 per cent to 4 per cent since the fee was inserted into electricity bills from early 2016.
According to the head of Italy’s Inland Revenue Agency (Agenzia delle Entrate), Rosella Orlandi, the introduction of a combined TV licence fee and electricity bill has worked even better than expected. In fact, tax authorities received an extra €500 million from the RAI TV licence fee compared to 2015, for a total revenue of €2.1 billion.
This despite the fact that the value of the TV licence fee was reduced in the period from €113.50 to €100 per year.
An estimated 21 million households paid the combined TV licence fee/electricity bill.
Users must pay the licence fee if they own one or more TV sets capable of receiving an audio/video signal via terrestrial and/or satellite devices. The payment does not apply to computers without TV tuners and old analogue TVs.
Italy had the highest evasion figure in Europe, despite having the lowest-priced TV licence fee.