Actor Siddharth in a series of tweets urged the film fraternity to join hands and protest against the 30% entertainment tax levied by the State Government. In addition to GST the total tax per ticket is calculated around 48-64 %
Noted lyricist Madhan Karky has tweeted that he is swilling to reduce his remuneration by 15 % till a solution is found.
Until the revision, I am willing to reduce 15% off my remuneration for songs and dialogues, if that would help the industry.
— Madhan Karky (@madhankarky) July 3, 2017
Director Shankar who is neck deep with Rajinikanth’s 2.0 has tweeted the following
48-58%.. too much tax.. save Tamil cinema
— Shankar Shanmugham (@shankarshanmugh) July 2, 2017
The film industry has been grappling with capped ticket prices and piracy for awhile and this last minute move by State government has left many worried. Director Kannan of Friday release Ivan Thanthiram was in tears when he requested the public not to watch the film on pirated sites or CDs. However his call came too late as pirated versions of the film are already out. Hopefully a consensus is found soon.