MUMBAI: These days, filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma is not finding the going easy. From his twitter wars with fellow filmmaker Karan Johar a few days ago (READ STORY HERE), Varma is now besieged by tax woes.
Reportedly, service tax officials came calling at Varma’s office in Andheri on Wednesday afternoon, and stayed there till well into the night, questioning the ‘Rangeela’ and ‘Satya’ director.
The reason for the tax men’s visit was the absence of his name on a list of 132 celebrities, who were suspected tax evaders.
Said a tax official, on the condition of anonymity: “We will scrutinise each of his projects to find out the amount of service and professional tax he has evaded. Film producers are liable to pay service tax as they sell their films and their satellite rights. Varma, being a director scriptwriter as well, is also liable to pay professional tax. We are recording his statement.”
Tax authorities are also scrutinising records of his production houses, which were allegedly registered in Hyderabad. Officials said that there was no record of registration of his two “phantom” production houses- Dream Force Productions and Dream Force Enterprises- neither in Hyderabad, nor anywhere else.
Service tax authorities said that the evasion of tax began when Varma shifted base of his companies to Hyderabad, post 2008, when his films started faltering. A source said that they did indeed raid Varma’s Millat Nagar, Andheri office, and he also added that RGV was co-operating with the authorities during the raid.
