BBC licence fee expected to top £200 amid row over ‘YouTube tax’ – The Independent

BBC licence fee expected to top £200 amid row over ‘YouTube tax’  The Independent

The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) analysis estimates that 2.7 million people will stop paying the BBC licence fee by 2031 Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Membership today. The BBC licence fee will exceed £200 a year within the next five years, new figures suggest, as millions stop paying for it. The analysis by the spending watchdog, the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR), suggests 2.7 million people will switch off from paying the licence fee by 2031/32, forcing it to rise from £180 to £202. It comes after The Independent revealed that the government is looking at plans to force up to 4 million households to start paying it again by extending it to streaming services in a so-called “YouTube tax”.

The proposal as part of the Charter renewal, is set to be outlined in a government white paper before Christmas. It would mean people will need to pay the licence fee if they want to use streaming services such as YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple TV and Disney+. Currently, it does not cover those services. The expected drop of 2.7 million licence fee payers represents a significant downgrade from the OBR’s previous assumptions in March, when it predicted that 21 million people would still be paying it by