2012 Rai Broadcast License for Businesses – Also for PCs and Smartphones

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While we don’t deal with taxes and levies every day, the news concerning the 2012 Rai broadcast license is of technological interest, as this year, for the first time, Rai has sent letters to offices and businesses requesting payment.
Indeed, for some days now, many Italian companies have received bulletins for the payment of the special broadcast license fee, due to their possession of devices capable of or adaptable to receiving radio and television broadcasts outside the home environment.
Therefore, despite the lack of an update to the relevant law, this would specifically include PCs, notebooks, netbooks, and likely also smartphones, videophones, or tablets.
This measure has generated considerable confusion, also because, in addition to the lack of clear regulatory definition, the requested amounts are certainly not insignificant: depending on the type of business, the fee ranges from 200 to 6,000 euros.
Inevitably, there have been protests and reports already submitted to consumer associations, as informed by Aduc, stating that “… in the absence of a determination to this effect by the Ministry of Economic Development, which we are not aware of, Rai’s request is illegitimate” and making it known that a parliamentary question has already been submitted to the Ministry of Economic Development.

Certainly, the regulation governing the payment of the Rai broadcast license is quite old: we are talking about a Royal Decree from 1938.
We just have to wait for the development of the parliamentary question to understand if businesses will actually have to comply and pay for possessing PCs, or if the matter will be put on hold, pending a possible revision of the law.

UPDATE: RAI has clarified the scope of the regulation, intending it restrictively. Details of Rai’s communication here.