High court dismissed the entertainment tax petition

     Written by : SMTV24x7 | Fri, Mar 17, 2017, 01:30 PM

High court dismissed the entertainment tax petition

Hyderabad, March 17: The Hyderabad High Court has supported the G.O 604, which has released by the united Andhra Pradesh Government in levying entertainment tax at the rate of 10 percent on Telugu films and 24 percent on non-Telugu films produced outside the state.

The Justice V Ramasubramanian and Justice J Uma Devi was dismissing the petition filed by Aashirvad Films, represented by its proprietor Rajan Sharma, challenging the notification issued by the then AP government on April 22, 2008 granting exemption from the payment of entertainment tax to certain categories of the films, under Section 19-A of the AP Entertainment Tax Act, 1939.

The petitioner said such a classification is unreasonable and unconstitutional. Taxation on the basis of place of production amounts to unreasonable classification, he contended.

Relying on SC judgment in Video Electronics Pvt Ltd case, the bench said "this is due to the fact that government had imposed uniform rate of tax on all the films irrespective of language. But it has created two different types of classifications - those produced in the state and those produced outside and secondly the area in which theatres are located."