Monday 16 December 2013

Fun Zones and Amusement Centres in Hyderabad evade Entertainment Tax

U Sudhakar Reddy
Vigilance and Enforcement sleuths found huge evasion of entertainment 
tax by theme parks and gaming zones in the city. In report submitted to the government 
after a random check of few companies found that 10 of them have evaded Rs 6.2 crore of 
entertainment tax.
This newspaper has earlier reported about searches on these

gaming zones. Vigilance 
director General Mr. R P Thakur in his report asked Revenue department Principal 
Secretary to instruct the Commercial Taxes department commissioner to recover the money.
Fun zone, Ocean Park, Snooker Zone, Cine Planet, S & S Entertainment, Galaxy, SVM 
multiplex were among the violators. Officials say that it is only a tip of iceberg and 
there are several companies in the city that are evading the entertainment tax.
Vigilance officials found during inspections that some of the fun zone owners are not 
reporting the turnovers to the Commercial Taxes department. On verification of books of 
accounts of the amusement and theme parks it was revealed that they are collecting entry 
and admission fees from the customers but not paying the entertainment tax on recreation 
provided by them.
Section 4 C of AP Entertainment Tax Act amusement and recreations centres have to pay 20 
per cent tax on each admission or participation in amusement. Recreations includes theme 
parks, resorts, sports and games association, cultural associations, magic shows, 
circuses, go-karting, video and computers games and musical concerts. However recreations 
which are organized to promote and propagate traditional and ancient arts like classical 
music, classical dance and folk arts.
It was found that around 10 companies had a turnover of Rs 33.11 crore and entertainment 
tax payable is Rs 6.2 crore. Funzone amusements, Galaxy entertainment limited in Ameerpet 
Bigbazar, Snooker Zone, Cine Planet at Kompally, S&S Entertainments, Quo Point Snooker at 
Kukatpally and Simply Snooker at Madhapur are other companies found to be erring by the 
vigilance.
List of three top evaders
Sri Venkateshwara Multiplex Pvt(SVM) Jubilee Hills    Rs 2.6 crore
Ocean Park Multitech Ltd Gandipet                                Rs 3.3 crore
 S Group(Game on sports bar-bowling) Karkhana            Rs 13.5 lakh

No comments: