Entertainment is an essential part of our life but who would make our government understand this? After a hectic day at work or school or college what we need to freshen up our mind is entertainment. Wasn’t the existing price in our country enough to loot the people that the Bhopal government is coming up with a new entertainment tax.
Apart from the already high prices, the people of Bhopal will now get to spend even higher for music, concerts, movies, theatre or any form of entertainment shows. Yesterday, on Thursday 2nd of August the Bhopal Municipal Council passed a resolution stating addition cess on entertainment. A flat rate of 15% would be charged on all show tickets which would be in addition to the GST charged. The government named this additional cess as “entertainment tax.
The price a normal person got to pay for entertainment
Already the price of cinema tickets in multiplexes is so high and now even this additional tax is going to be added on. What would a normal person do? Doesn’t the common people have the right to entertainment? Now, the people of Bhopal have to pay an additional 15% on all tickets. Just imagine the rise in price. Already 18% GST is levied on tickets less than 100 and 25% on tickets above 100 rupees. Now plus 15%. The point to be noted is mostly the ticket price in theatres are above 100 rupees.
Imagine a ticket to be of 200 rupees. So, the calculation is 200+28%, i.e. 200+56= 256. Now 256+15%, i.e. 256+38.4= 295. So, approximately a person has to pay 300 for a normal ticket of originally 200, leaving apart the other higher range tickets. On the other hand, the cost of food and drinks I theatre is on another level.
Thank God!! The levy of this tax on cable TV subscription has been postponed for now but the Government is planning to levy this on them also. This has been exempted for the time being after a memorandum being submitted by BJP and Congress to exempt Cable TV subscription from the entertainment tax on the ground that it is for the common people and already it comes under GST. To this the BMC mayor, Alok Sharma responded that it is not such an important matter that it needs to be discussed in the house and that the original rate proposed by BMC was 20%.
To the relief of people, few places of public importance have been exempted from this additional tax; 3 of which are Bharat Bhawan (the multi-arts complex), Shaurya Smarak (war memorial), Van Vihar National Park.
Mohd Azizuddin, the secretary of Bhopal Cine Association claims this cess to be illegal and that after GST no other tax can be claimed as GST is the foremost tax on all goods and services. He further said, “We shall challenge this in court and I am sure it would be stayed in the 1st hearing itself.”