[Cincinna]

Yes, the French government makes you pay a tax on your TV (about $150/yr),  every single year. If you don’t pay, and some busybody neighbor turns you In, they can confiscate your TV.

FWIW, I never paid it. 

Socialism and out of control taxes: coming soon to an out if control tax crazed POTUS if we don’t take action!

[JudgemAll]

Tax vampires... anything you do or move incures a tax... Les Inconnus

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=at3Mnw1kjSg

[Myrddin]

I noticed the same crap going on when I visited a bed and breakfast in Wales. They made a big deal of having "fully licensed TV". Good grief. I haven't watched broadcast TV in the U.S. for 12 years. Ditto for cable. I had DishNet for a brief time, but I was never home (900 miles away) to watch it, so it is gone. I own a 23" TV/Computer monitor to interface with my BluRay player and computer. It is mostly a computer monitor, but serves as a BluRay video monitor on rare occasions. No "TV" connectivity. No interest.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

The British famously had little sniffer vans with a loop antenna on the roof that were tuned to the line scan frequency of a CRT. With flat screens that doesn’t work, they are indistinguishable from a computer display and emit a much smaller signal. The tax was intended to support the BBC television broadcasts.

Do many people still watch broadcast TV in France, anyway, and is government broadcast TV what the tax is supposed to support?