Goa government may provide tax rebate to filmmakers

Shooting at Goa, one of the preferred destinations to can movies, would now be more profitable as the state government is studying a proposal to provide tax rebate to the filmmakers.

The Entertainment Society of Goa (ESG) chief executive officer Manoj Srivastava said the draft scheme recommends that state will pay back one to 5 per cent of the total spending by the filmmakers in the state.

"The filmmakers will be requested to submit copies of all the bills of their spending during shooting in Goa," he said.

The scheme, drafted by ESG and submitted to the state government recently, mentions that cap of 5% will be put on reimbursement.

The bills will include all their expenses including hotel, food and and any other things on which they have spent here, he said.

ESG CEO said the scheme aims to invite more filmmakers to shoot in Goa.

Srivastava said such tax reimbursement schemes do exist in countries like the UK. As per ESG, 600 days of film shootings were reported last year bringing in revenue of Rs36 lakh.