As the new government has taken at the centre under the leadership of Narandra Modi, direct-to-home (DTH) operators have resumed their fight for relief from the multi-layer taxes they have to pay. On behalf of the six private DTH players, Dish TV has appealed to finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Information and broadcasting (I&B) minister Prakash Javadekar for a meeting to discuss the issue.
The industry has been raising the issue of multi-layer taxation many times in the past as well. Currently, DTH operators pay 10 per cent (of annual revenue) to the Centre in the form of licence fee and 12.3 per cent as service tax. Additionally, they pay entertainment tax to individual state governments as prescribed by them just like the Cable TV Industry.
“Dish TV is taking the lead to appeal to the finance minister to provide relief from the twin burden of entertainment tax and service tax. It has appealed to allow abatement in service tax to the extent of entertainment tax paid or 60 per cent of service tax - whichever is lower. The flawed taxation structure of this industry has encumbered the growth of this otherwise promising industry,” said R C Venkateish, chief executive, Dish TV India.
There are seven DTH service providers in India out of which six are private operators - Dish TV, Airtel DTH, Videocon d2h, Tata Sky, Reliance Digital TV and SunDirect. The seventh player, DD Direct, is part of state-run Doordarshan.
Source: http://cablequest.org/news/dth-news/item/5241-cq-dth-ops-wants-relief-from-multiple-taxes.html
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