TN Theatres in Huge Losses: Govt Yet to Take a Call:- With Goods and Service Tax (GST) implemented across the country, it has been revealed that 80% of the people are unaware about the new taxation policy. This lead to a huge confusion across many states and some of states started imposing a special state tax. Tamil Nadu government shocked the theatres by introducing 30% tax extra excluding 28% GST which is something quite huge. Paying 58% as tax is something undigestable and it left the whole country in deep shock. Thanks for the governments of the Telugu speaking states as there has been no extra tax as well as ticket hike in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
The Tamil Nadu theatres association held talks with the government after which they decided to shut down the theatres from July 3rd. This indefinite strike will have a huge impact on the whole Tamil film industry and many top actors like Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan pledged the government to support them. Rajinikanth posted on his official twitter page saying “Keeping in mind the livelihood of lakhs of people in the Tamil film industry, I sincerely request the Tamil Nadu government to seriously consider our plea”.
Rajnikanth Requests TN Govt To Re-Consider Double Taxation Plea
The whole state has been waiting for the positive decision from the government and even the opposition parties have been pressurizing the government in the Assembly. This is the fourth day in a row the theatres remained shut which is a huge loss. An analyst revealed that the loss is expected to be close to Rs 50 crores. Over thousand theatres across the state remained shut and the if continued the losses would touch Rs 100 crores by this weekend. There are also talks that the theatre owners are not in a mood to hike the prices of the tickets as the common audience have already been staying away from theatres because of the prices.
Piracy has become a barrier for films and TN Theatres Association even requested the government to take special measures in curbing piracy. Tamil Nadu Cinema Theatre Owners Federation president Abirami Ramanathan earlier said the government left Kollywood in dark clouds with the double taxation. Many films that released during the last two weeks lost collections because of the ongoing strike across the state. We have to wait and see how Tamil Nadu government will take the step in solving the issue. On the other hand, the actors and the technicians across the state started protesting and a massive protest has been planned if the government denies double taxation. More updates soon.
