Producers skipping TDS deposit, claim film workers

KOLKATA: March being the time for filing income tax returns, the film and television industry is grappling with a strange problem: many have started complaining that certain producers have not paid the tax that they had deducted at source from their (employees’) remuneration. As a result, they are worried about a double payment—once, when their TDS was deducted during payment and now, they will again have to pay the tax on their own as the employer had failed to do so.To avoid and evade tax problems, some have allegedly been demanding that they be paid in cash entirely.
“Sometimes, we get complaints about non-deposit of tax deducted at source by employers (producers). Some complaints are found to be false,” an income tax official said.
Director Aniket Chattopadhyay claimed to have faced such a problem last year. “The producer had not paid Rs 40,000 as TDS that he had cut from my remuneration of Rs 4 lakh. I had to pay around Rs 25,000 in tax as the I-T records stated no tax had been filed on this earning. The amount I finally got was less than what I had settled for” he said.
Those who have a GST number are spared of the trouble as their annual income has to be above Rs 20 lakh. But for most in the film and TV industry, this magic figure isn’t easy to reach. “If someone agrees to a remuneration of Rs 2 lakh, the producer cuts TDS and pays him Rs 1,80,000. He promises to deposit Rs 20,000 to the I-T department, along with the employee’s pan number. But in reality, they don’t make this payment. When they work with fly-by-night producers, most want cash. This is a new way of channelizing black money,” Chattopadhay alleged.
Producer Rana Sarkar is aware of this problem: “Depositing TDS is a tedious process. Sometimes, producers miss paying TDS because of technical issues. That gets adjusted in the next financial year.”
Another producer said, “When producers miss depositing the TDS, we refund it in cash and ask the workers to pay the tax. None can refuse to pay TDS. But if a fly-by-night producer disappears, there is no way to recover the money.”
Film publicist Samujjwal Ghosh recently discovered a producer he worked with last year hadn’t deposited the TDS. “I am only hearing false promises. Now, I might have to make double payments—once to the producer for TDS and again to the I-T department,” he said.