Back on July 1^st the Italian government revised its TV licensing system. It lowered the annual fee from €113 to €100 and legislated that the fee had to be collected through the electricity or gas utility bills.

Prior to this change it had been estimated that between 25-30 per cent of Italian homes evaded the system.

Italy’s economic ministry says that the new system is working well and looks as if it will raise more than €2 billion per annum. “The data provided by the Revenue Agency and [electricity utility company] Enel confirms that evasion was significantly reduced,” said the country’s undersecretary for economic development in charge of telecommunications Antonello Giacomelli, adding that even if there was some evasion it looked as if more than €2 billion would be raised, and that this sum was well ahead of even the most optimistic forecasts.

This time last year it was estimated that only about 16 million Italian homes paid the fee. As at 2014 there were about 24.7 million TV households.

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