I am paying around 48 € every three months for this. Is this applicable to all. Or am I being fooled to pay this. I have being told that everyone who watches TV has to pay this.

One of my experience:
We all need to be very careful with whatever contracts we sign. last year one guy visited me and I was by his luck on leave. He was from johanitter society. He asked me for donation. I thought that we are earning in this country so it will be good if I could contribute a litte. I didnt knew proper deutsch that time. so i could understand half and not all. I asked if this is only for this year, and he said yes. So after sometime 60 euro were deducted from my account (considering 5 € per month). I was not expecting it this month, but recently i saw again 60 € deducted from my account. :-) its okay, because its for good but we all need to be very careful with vertrags here.

Regards

Hi GM,

48 € is correct, we all have to pay this :-(

Here is an article, regarding this topic:
http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/gesellschaft/0,1518,322123,00.html

Viele Grüße aus Berlin
Detlef

Hi
Yes.. I pay it too..
They send nasty letters, if you dont register your TV/Radio and they seem not to believe that you dont have a TV..

By the way.. My TV became out of order couple of weeks ago(seriously) and I am not planing to replace it for some months. Can I officially inform GEZ for my non-working TV and ask them not to take money for those months ? any experience with such a situation.

Thanks

Lacrima

Sure, you have to deregister your tv and they will send you a form asking you to confirm this deregistration or giving a date when you plan to replace it.

Cheers,
-a

:-) I worked for these people for 4 months and let me tell you, you can really get in problem if you don't pay it.

But matter of fact, I never paid that, and I'm not sure I will. The best test they did was to check after I started working there if I was paying this money, and they found out that I wasn't. They simply sent me a letter asking me to but I never did :-)

You are normally supposed to pay it, if you have a car, a TV or a radio at home because you surely watch ARD, ZDF and other TV channels who perceive this money.

And just before I quitted, I heard that they were gonna raise the price people are paying and they gonna start asking money for the PC too because one can simply have no TV but watch the different programs on his PC with a TV Card.

But next hing I will do as soon as I can is to install a dish and start getting channels from outside and leave some like Pro7 for which we are not supposed to pay that.

D.

Hi detlef,

thanks for the article. It was good :-) it says from 1.04.05 this gebühr will be increased to 17,03€. Why do they take this entertainment tax. Don't they like us becomming happy for few moments :-)

Nobody:
good that u informed, i have been paying it since begining (unwillingly). :-(

NoBody
"But next hing I will do as soon as I can is to install a dish and start getting channels from outside and leave some like Pro7 for which we are not supposed to pay that."

according to law you have to pay it even if you have sat

Hi all

2 NoB: Yes the guys are right. You have to pay even if you have only a dish. A friend of mine was caught by the inspectors of GEZ because they saw the dish and they checked the GEZ fee and he wasn´t Angemeldet. Conclusion: fine quite high!

2 All: the thing is not so easy. You (and me) are paying 48 EUR each three month. But this is the Grundgebühr. IF you have more than a TV or more than a radio (appart from the radio from the car) you have to pay more.

In addition to that, all the elektronic shops have the duty of informing GEZ for each new TV set or radio buyed in the shop.

But the comic thing, in my case, the ABH people informed GEZ about me. We receive a letter for my wife, with all the data and in the only place this information was at that moment was in the Ausländeramt.

I don´t wanna problems, so I pay. We have a lot of problems now, I don´t want they use my non-pay-case as a cause for denial an Aufenthalts...

Regards

YO

YO,

You are right. We all should try to stay as clean as possible. Trying to save some money can turn out to be more expensive. Every place has its own rules for its residents and we all should abide by it.

regards

As far as I can remember, this money goes to specific TV channels (can't remember the list but ARD, ZDF, WDR are 3 of 'em), and that means, IMHO if you don't ever watch this channel (which is feasible by adjusting your TV), you are not suppose to pay that. Or are we billed for the "ability" to watch these channels and not for watching them in fact.

D.

D.

It simply means that because you have a TV, you have to pay entertainment tax, whether you watch any channels or not. Total money collected gets distributed among these channels.

This is my understanding.

I asked the person who cam to me, that I already pay for cable. He said, it does matter whether I pay for cable connection or not, but since I have a TV and it works, I have to pay the Rundfunkgebhür.

have fun with rundfunk :-)

Stimmt brother NoB!

You CAN see those channels. By now (surely soon they could) they cannot now which channels you do see or not. So, you have to pay see them or not.

But I think your list is quite incomplete. With this Geld you are also financing all the multitude of thousand regional channels otherwise they will starve to death (because the SO limited audience like the local channel here)

Regards

YO

hey guy, why don't you ask your neighbour if they have paid their contribution?
I have read from somewhere else that mid of next year, the TV-card is counted as TV so you have to pay the GEZ. The next step computer owner has to pay this tax, no matter if you watching TV with your computer or not.
Can somebody confirm this? thanks.

read this article, it is fun!
http://www.faz.com/IN/INtemplates/eFAZ/archive.asp?rub={F040FFD3-897B-46DF-9603-752DD6405389}&doc={E1A5E8CB-9CC7-4E85-BA8F-B84995E69347}

Yes VP is true

If you have ANY TV, doesn´t matter the form, size or system you have to pay.

If you have a Heimkino also if it have radio. I think even if you have an MP3 player with radio or a diskman with radio you have to pay

But as I have only one radio, only one tv and no computer I only pay the basic fee!

Regards

YO