Tax on foreign commercials increased

6 December 2017 05:43 pm

The Cabinet on Tuesday sharply increased the tax on films, tele-dramas and TV commercials produced in a foreign country and telecast by local TV stations.

Accordingly, a tele-drama or a film dubbed in Sinhala or Tamil will have to pay Rs. 150,000 per first 4 slots with 30 minutes duration or less per day.

This is an increase of Rs. 160,000 per slot from earlier tax of Rs. 90,000 per slot.

For the next four slots the payment of tax has been increased to Rs. 250,000 per slot from Rs. 90,000 and the balance slots to Rs. 350,000 per slot from earlier Rs. 90,000.

For repeat telecasts with 30 minutes or less duration will have to pay a tax of Rs. 50,000 per slot, an increase of Rs. 20,000 from earlier Rs. 30,000. For next four slots the payment is Rs. 80,000 from Rs. 30,000 and for the balance slots it is Rs. 120,000 from Rs. 30,000.

Tax for a slot of other foreign tele-dramas has also been increased to Rs. 100,000 from Rs. 75,000.

This was also a budget 2017 proposal.The proposal had been presented by Finance and Mass Media Minister Mangala Smaraweera. (Sandun A Jayasekera)