Hyderabad: Vigilance and Enforcement department has conducted raids on fun and entertainment zones across the city and une-arthed lakhs of rupees in unpaid entertainment tax. Amusement centres with bowling, snooker, video games and water games are liable to pay 20 per cent entertainment tax on total turnover to the commercial taxes department.
According to top officials of V&E in the raids it was found some of the centres are not even registered with Commercial Taxes and some are evading ET by not showing the collections in their account books.
Director general of Vigilance and Enforcement, R.P. Thakur, confirmed the raids on the fun zones in the city, Cyberabad, Vijayawada and Vizag. “One of them was found to have evaded '8 lakh in taxes. Some companies raided are paying promptly. Action would be taken against the erring ones,” he said.
Searches were conducted at 15 centres in the city including Run way-9, Cine Planet, Dholari-dhani at Kompally, Inorbit Mall at Hitech city, Vidhata hotels, Simply Snooker at Madhapur, Ramoji Film City, Ocean Park at Gandipet, Funzone at GVK Mall and so on. V&E sleuths are verifying the records seized from these companies to check if there are any ET evasions.
“These centres are required to file monthly returns as per the AP Entertainment Taxes Act. The big companies are filing but others are not doing it. Evasion notice will attract relevant penalities under the ET Act.”
