Tax row: Actor Dileep ready to pay up

Kochi: Keeping his word, actor Dileep appeared before the Central Excise Department preventive wing officials on Tuesday along with his brother Anoop and is understood to have expressed his willingness to pay the pending taxes in the alleged service tax evasion case. The statement of the brothers was recorded based on a questionnaire prepared by the officials.

Dileep arrived at the Central Excise office in Kochi around 11.00 a.m. and the questioning lasted for seven hours. Dileep produced certain documents related to the income sources. He is leant to have agreed to pay the evaded sum once it is quantified by the officials after inspecting the documents presented by him.

The officials will now conduct a detailed probe into the case based on the deposition by Dileep and it will begin on Friday. The brothers will be questioned again, a department official said and added  the actor cooperated with the questioning on Tuesday.

He  was not at home when the raid took place. Later, the department sent a notice asking him to explain the source of unaccounted money.

An official said that some of the cases involving film actors had occurred due to lack of awareness of laws. The government had made transfers in film, music and video rights taxable under laws framed in 2010 while actors’ remuneration came under the tax net from July 2012, he added.