Filmmakers demand tax rebate
HERALD REPORTER
PANJIM, NOV 24
The filmmakers at the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) 2010 have asked for tax rebate claiming that the film industry pays upto 40 per cent of their earnings back to the government.
Independent producer and actor Sanjay Suri said that Indian films are overtaxed. “Almost up to 40 per cent of the revenue (earned by the films) goes in the government treasury,” he said interacting with the media at IFFI venue.
The producer, participating in a workshop on “Independent Financing” at National Film Division Corporation’s film bazaar, said that there is a huge list of taxes that are forced on the filmmakers eating into their earnings.
Suri is attending the festival to promote his film ‘I am’, which is scheduled to be released early next year.
The actor plays Abhimanyu who after years of sexual abuse in the hands of his stepfather ends up with a fear of commitment, ambiguous about his sexual preference reflected in the different coloured socks he wears, working up to a confrontation with his mother.
He blames his mother for his troubled past and ending up becoming a bit of a ‘user’ himself. Interestingly, his stepfather in the film is played by filmmaker Anurag Kashyap who has admitted to being abused as a child.
Suri said that filmmaker is overburdened with taxes like VAT, stamp duty, income tax, service tax and many others which is killing the industry.
“Bollywood film industry is the highest tax payer,” he added. Suri appealed Union Finance Ministry to look at this issue sympathetically.
“There is hardly any government support,” he lamented. The filmmaker’s contention gels with the worry raised by veteran filmmaker Yash Chopra during IFFI inauguration who had said that the tax is increasingly becoming a concern for the Indian films.
“We are celebrating 100 years of Hindi Cinema in 2013 but we fear of disappearing with heavy tax burden,” he had said in the presence of Union Railway Minister Mamata Benerjee.
