CHENNAI: The Tamil film fraternity came together during a day-long token fast here on Thursday to protest the Central Government’s proposal to introduce service tax on the temporary sale of copyright. All shooting schedules stood cancelled on Thursday in view of the protest, while several theatres did not screen films. Reasoning that the move would be detrimental to the development of cinema, filmmakers, actors, distributors, exhibitors and producers voiced their protest against the proposal.Senior filmmaker Muktha Srinivasan said that though a delegation met Home Minister P Chidambaram regarding the issue, he was yet to take any action.According to Tamil Film Producers Council president S A Chandrasekar, unlike the general perception, the industry was not a profitable one as a majority of films do not rake in the investments.As per a Central Government circular (dated December 13, 2011), all temporary sale of copyright would be brought under the ambit of service tax. This would imply that each and every point of sale of copyrights would be eligible for service tax, usually levied on the seller to be recovered from the buyer.The protest saw the participation of actors Vijay, Sathyaraj, Bhagiaraj, Parthiban, Sarath Kumar, Jayam Ravi and producers TG Thyagarajan, Dhanu and Thenappan. Officer bearers of South Indian Film Chamber of Commerce also took part.
Comments
0 comment