The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Tax cut on dubbed films urged

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jun 30, 2006

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Tax cut on dubbed films urged

Staff Reporter

Producers "earned little while channels made big money"

CHENNAI: The annual general body meeting of the Film and Television Producers' Guild of South India held recently has urged the Chief Minister to help cut entertainment tax for dubbed films.

In a statement, Guild president S. Devaraj Gunasekaran said the rate of entertainment tax in Tamil Nadu for dubbed movies was 50 per cent against 10-15 per cent for Tamil movies.

He said this disparity was due to the representations by the Tamil Film Producers Council, who were concerned over the survival of the Tamil film industry if the dubbed films were allowed to run under the same tax structure. The point might have been valid some years ago, but technological advancements and the entry of private TV channels had changed the situation, he said.

Satellite channels today show dubbed movies regularly and they do not attract any tax from the State or Central governments.

In fact, they get huge advertisement revenues. The producers who dubbed films earned little by way of revenue, he said.

The Guild also urged the Government to set up a Tamil Nadu Film Development Corporation along the lines of the National Film Development Corporation.

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