Massachusetts Residents Expect To Pay More For Cable In 2025

Residents have been furious lately about their bills whether it's electricity or gas. Does that mean the same ordeal for cable TV as well?

There's a new tax under a proposal by the Department of Revenue that would cause a slight increase in people's cable bills. However, there are exceptions to this new price hike.

Since 2009, analog TV broadcasts have ceased to excise which forces Massachusetts viewers to have a set-top-cable box. While over the air TV broadcasts remain to be free, cable viewer however are subject to a rental fee.

According to WWLP22News, cable providers could soon be forced to charge the state’s 6.25% sales tax to its customers that only have these set-top-box. Since technology has evolved since 2008, DOR stated that cable converter boxes, set-top boxes and cable system terminal devices it considered were “only for the purpose of receiving programming or information from the cable provider, or for implementing parental controls.”

A working draft directive mentioned that this would apply to the state’s 6.25% sales tax on devices that “can do more than connect a cable system to a TV broadcast receiver, and allow for parental controls.” Cable boxes that have the ability to record shows is another example.

“Specifically, a Device with additional features including, but not limited to, the ability to (i) schedule, record, locally store and play back recorded content for later viewing, (ii) access or run software applications such as web-based content streaming services, games, productivity tools, or other non-television applications, or (iii) transmit recorded content to a smartphone or tablet or access recorded content from another digital video recorder, is not exclusively used in the operation of commercial television transmission, and therefore is not exempt,” - DOR's draft directive

DOR is welcome to any comments on the draft until business closes on March 21 and the agency is also specifically targeting “Massachusetts customers of cable television providers” as well as the cable providers themselves. Comments are to be emailed to rulesandregs@dor.state.ma.us.