Chennai sources have stated that around 1,100 cinemas across Tamil Nadu will be closed from Monday as the theatre owners have called an indefinite strike against a new municipal tax of 30% in addition to the Goods and Services Tax or GST. Currently the theatre owners decided to cancel all shows from July 3 after the Edappadi Palaniswami government worked around the GST and introduced a 30% municipal tax on cinemas.
Meanwhile it was stated that according to the tax rates decided by the GST Council, cinema tickets priced less than Rs. 100 were to be charged 18% tax. Moreover it was added that senior functionary of the state's cinema theatre owners' federation told that "They are going to be forced to pay 58% tax. This will make watching movies in theatre halls unaffordable for a vast majority of the people”.
Accordingly the federation has
asked the state government to roll back the municipal tax and by following the
implementation of Goods and Service Tax from today and due to uncertainty over
pricing of cinema tickets, most theatres in the state had earlier suspended
advance booking of tickets.
