TEAM HERALD
teamherald@herald-goa.com
PANJIM: Organisers of the two mega Electronic Dance Music (EDM) festivals – Sunburn and Supersonic held in December 2013 have come under the scanner of the department of commercial taxes over payment of taxes.
Days after issuing show cause notices to the two companies for not meeting the deadline for submission of data and filing of returns by January 31, 2014, the commissionerate has begun scrutinising data submitted thereafter by the two companies.
A senior official of the department said, “We cannot go by what the organisers are claiming in their records as far as spectator attendance and sale of tickets are concerned.”
“We had sent our staff to the venues as well and the process is on to cross check our data with theirs,” the official said adding that even though some payments have been made it could not be considered as the final dues owed by the companies to the government.
The department of commercial taxes has also sought data from booking agency ‘bookmyshow.com’ on the on-line sale of tickets for the EDM events and all other events held during the current financial year.
Sources say that this data has also been received and the verification process is currently on.
The two event organizers are also likely to be called for a hearing in the matter this month before the commissionerate takes a final call over dues owed by the organizers for conduct of the two major EDM events during this current financial year.
Meanwhile, the department of commercial taxes has collected Rs 2038.64 crore by way of taxes (upto February 28, 2014) and is hoping to meet its target of Rs 2675 crore by end of the current financial year.
While taxes are due from the mega EDM events, the department has already collected Rs 99.86 crore (upto February 2014) by way of entertainment tax and has surpassed the target of Rs 95.15 crore for the financial year 2013-14 — Rs 1,442.55 crore has been collected from Value Added Tax (VAT), Rs 106.20 crore from luxury tax and Rs 325.16 crore from entry tax which again has surpassed the target of Rs 241 crore.
Officials say that despite the recession in the mining sector the tax collection by the department is higher than last year’s overall collection of Rs 2,012.81 crore even if it does not meet this year’s target of Rs 2,675 crore.
