Entertainment industry now under taxman's spotlight

The service tax department has now turned its focus on the large Indian entertainment industry as investigations have started on 136 film production houses including big names like Eros International, Reliance Big Entertainment and Shemaroo, reports CNBC-TV18's Aastha Maheshwari

According to the service tax department, the sale of satellite rights and also some of the support services which these production houses provide are liable to come under the service tax net.
In 2010, the government had imposed a service tax liability which had been contested by these production houses in 2013. However, the department is now raising this tax demand for the period 2010 to 2012.
This tax liability is going to amount to more than Rs 300 crore revenue for the department and they have already started investigating on individual professional fees also. A couple of notices have already been sent to some of the directors in the past few days.
With the big production houses also coming under the tax net in the next few day's, things are going to get more heated up.