IMPPA expresses unhappiness with Union Budget 2007-08

Mumbai, Mar 2 (UNI) The Indian Motion Pictures Producers Association (IMPPA) has written letters to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P Chidambaram, expressing its unhappiness about the total apathy shown by the Centre in the Budget 2007-08 to the needs and demands of the film and entertainment industry.

A IMPAA release said the film and television industry has always been taxed to the hilt by both the Union and Maharashtra Governments, who have been using the industry as a milch cow without giving any return to the industry.

Effectively, the industry has reached a stage where it has already collapsed. Barring a few corporate filmmakers, none of the independent producers has survived and the industry is on its death bed awaiting cremation, which is being expedited by the increasing tax burden imposed by the State and Central Governments.

Moreover, every producer, at every stage of production, pays every direct and indirect taxes, including customs, excise, sales tax, octroi, municipal taxes and Central sales tax on every product used by him and also pays income tax, and every other direct or indirect taxes imposed on individuals and corporates even when the product manufactured by the Producers, that is the film, is taxed from the date of release.

Even before the recovery of the cost of production, tax is collected from the first ticket in the form of entertainment tax and other taxes imposed on the exhibition sector and even after that stage where 90 per cent producers do not even cover the cost of production, while the Government collects maximum amount of the revenue collected by the film from last year.

Under the current government, every transaction in the film industry has been subject to service tax, which is a multiple tax at every stage of production.

The fact that the film and entertainment industry is suffering heavily under the impact of taxes, is proved by the fact that the number of films produced is going down every year and the advantage of not having these taxes is proved by the fact that due to the tax holidays, multiplexes are mushrooming across the country.

It is the film industry which has kept Indian culture alive across the world and if the Indian film industry collapses, not only the Indian culture will loose its cultural ambassador but multiplexes in the country will also become totally unviable and will have to close down because it is only the film which draws the audience and without films, multiplexes have no identity, the release added.

UNI