The Hindu : Poor collection of cable TV entertainment tax may hit Corpn.

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Mar 22, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Tamil Nadu-Chennai

Poor collection of cable TV entertainment tax may hit Corpn.

By Karthik Subramanian

CHENNAI MARCH 21. The abysmal performance of the Chennai Corporation's revenue department in the collection of Cable TV entertainment tax for the year 2002-03 is likely to cost the civic agency dearly, with the proposed budgetary taxation changes.

The government in its budget presentation on Friday announced that the collection of the Cable TV entertainment tax was being transferred to the government. After fixing a compounding rate of tax for cable TV operators, the State Government has announced that the civic agency will be compensated by way of annual grants "equivalent to their actual tax collections from Cable TV in 2002-03".

The announcement has taken several councillors as well as officials by surprise. "It is a well known fact that the Corporation has not fully accounted all the cable TV operators in the city. As per records, only 150 operators have registered their name and the collection has been only Rs 68.74 lakhs for the last year up to March. This being the case the Government should not base their grant based on last year's accounts," said the Congress councillor, Saidai P.Ravi, quoting revenue department figures.

A survey conducted by the Corporation's revenue department recently identified more than 1,000 cable TV operators within the city limits. At the rate of Rs 72,000 per operator per year fixed under the proposed compounding tax, entertainment tax for the city alone could raise more than Rs.7 crores for the Government.

But the poor performance by the civic agency in bringing the cable TV operators under the tax net would result in a loss in excess of Rs.6 crores for the Chennai Corporation if calculated at the rate of Rs 72,000 per operator per year.

The revised estimate presented in the Corporation budget 2002-03 for Cable TV entertainment tax calculated at the rate of Rs 20 per connection per month was just Rs.1 crore. The budget estimate for next year was Rs.2 crores.

Meanwhile, the Corporation has issued notices to several cable TV operators in the city to pay up their dues running into tens of lakhs, since July 2000 when the tax was transferred from Commercial Taxes department to the local bodies.

One such operator in central Chennai was asked to pay for over 3,000 connections and the cumulative figure was Rs. 21 lakhs. Even while welcoming the introduction of the compounding tax system, the operator pointed out that it might work against the interest of smaller operators with just a few hundred connections while weighing heavily in favour of big time operators.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Southern States

Stories in this Section

Poor collection of cable TV entertainment tax may hit Corpn.

`Tax on phone rentals, a heavy burden on subscribers'

Tributes paid to Kanchi Acharya

Transferred engg. students can take exam in new colleges

25 huts gutted at Nochikuppam

EMUs rescheduled