Home phone News

50p landline tax is scrapped

Wednesday 7 April, 2010

By Becca Talbot - becca@consumerchoices.co.uk

Plans to hit consumers with a 50p a month landline tax to fund superfast broadband have been scrapped in the run-up to the general election.

The government’s controversial £6 a year tax on home phone lines has been scrapped.

Under the proposed landline duty, every household in the country with a fixed phone line would have been charged 50p a month. The money would be used to raise £170million a year to fund the rollout of superfast broadband across the UK.

The landline tax proposals have been put on hold because of Gordon Brown’s announcement of a general election yesterday, as there is no time to push legislation through before Parliament is dissolved next week.

The tax is likely to reappear on the agenda should Labour win the election. The Conservatives have said, however, that if they gain power the tax may be canned completely.

The tax was originally outlined in Lord Carter’s Digital Britain report in June last year, as a way of funding the rollout of broadband to rural parts of the UK.

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