So today I looked into how to pay our TV tax. The government charges you an annual fee of $25 per year for the privilege of having one or more televisions in your house. It’s payable at the post office or online using your Sing Pass account.
To be fair, local TV is clear and there are 7 or so channels (two-three are in English) so you don’t need cable.
What do you think of the idea of a TV tax?
Expat Bostonians 
I tend to agree with taxes on habits, particularly un-necessary habits. If I were in charge, alcohol and cigarettes would be taxed thru the roof, for example.
Given that, a TV tax seems to make sense to me.
I think it’s a lot cheaper than cable and a fair price for about 7 channels. It makes as much sense to tax TV service as it does sales, income or property.
Seems the US is one of the rarer countries that doesn’t charge a ‘tv tax’ – of course the flip side of that…without cable you don’t get much, if anything on the television. European countries charge a television tax that varies depending upon the countries.
@ Zach Woods “If I were in charge, alcohol and cigarettes would be taxed thru the roof, for example.”
Alcohol AND cigarettes ARE taxed through the roof here =D
About 300% tax for cigarettes, I believe.
Alchohol would be less though, exactly how much tax, i’m not too sure. =)
I paid about 60 US dollars for a bottle of vodka that might cost 20 bucks at home
@Daphne – Where is the here that you are talking about?
If you are talking about the US, I say tax them more – as they are often taxed even more heavily in other countries.
Zach
I quite like the TV tax in Sweden and the UK. It pays for commercial free TV channels.
My god… I’m totally envious… 20 bucks for a bottle of vodka… I’ve never had drinks at such cheap prices in my life!
May I enquire how much a night out in town costs back in the States? (Assuming you order a bottle of vodka?)
Not sure about the drinking habits in America, but here, a bottle of vodka in a pub would cost roughly about 100-170/bottle. (depending on where you go)
The cost of a night out varies widely depending on where you live. When I go out in Boston and NYC, it’s usually in the ballpark of 14 SGD-21SGD for a single drink. I have never gone out with friends and done a bottle of vodka…I usually buy from a liquor store and then at parties it’s been slowly consumed over the matter of a year or so. In college we’d do a few shots before going out because we could only afford getting into the club (free-14SGD depending) and a drink or two. As an adult, when I’ve gone out for a drink in rural mass, drinks are usually half the cost, and in more rural parts of the US, that’s much more the norm (4SGD happy hour beers, 7 for mixed for drinks…sometimes cheaper). We usually heard tourists bitch about the cost of a drink.
The 20 dollar bottle of vodka would be at a store, not a bar 🙂
Further, once I saw the cost of alcohol, I was a little sad about our decision to not bring liquor from the US.