Raids, Rumours and Rains!!

By Moviebuzz
Friday, 28 October , 2005, 09:57

It was billed as the biggest crackdown by Income Tax (IT) sleuths on the Tamil film industry’s current hot favourites in the last 15 years! Nearly 300 IT officials forming several teams descended on various premises in Chennai, Mumbai, and Hyderabad belonging to Kollywood personalities.
The raids which started around 8 am (Wednesday) continued on till the wee hours of Thursday morning. According to Santosh Datta, Director General of IT (investigation): “The searches were based on solid two months of intelligence gathering which covered popular film stars, producers, directors, playback singers, film financiers and music directors”.

The 19-film personalities whose places were raided and are under the scanner are

Actors- Vijay, Vikram, Surya, Jayam Ravi, Silambarasan, T.Rajendran, Vivek, Trisha, Sneha, Asin and Nayantara.
Music directors: A.R.Rahman, Harris Jayaraj, Yuvan Shankar Raja.
Producers &Directors: Shankar, Oscar Ravichandran, S.A.Chandrasekhar,
Playback Singers: Sreenivas, Mano

Added to that big time film financiers and overseas distributors who were raided, included Pankaj Mehta, Subhash Nahar, Sanjay Wadhwa.

The search and sweep operation accounted for cash and fixed deposit to the tune of Rs 1 Crore and money transactions around Rs 6 Crore and jewellery (yet to be valued), besides documents showing cash transactions running into several Crores were also recovered. There are rumours that cash to the tune of Rs 5 Crore was found from an actor’s house and Rs 40 Lakhs from Pankaj Mehta’s.

“When the final assessment is over (may take weeks) the total unaccounted money maybe to the tune of Rs 40-50 Crore” according to a leading tax consultant. But due to the torrential rains that hit Chennai, the IT department decided to access the jewellery seized and open the lockers only on Monday (Oct 31).

The industry claims that the raids came about as 2005 was the best year for Tamil industry at the box-office. And the authorities had also got proof that top heroes in Tamil were getting more money per film than Shahrukh Khan in Bollywood!

Added that a new breed of young heroes like Surya, Silambarasan and Jayam Ravi, whose salary was around Rs 1 Crore suddenly raised their salary but had not accounted their salary rise in their audit submitted to the IT department.

And some of these stars were flaunting their wealth creating a lot of jealousy within the industry. Added to that, some disgruntled producers had also sent anonymous letters to IT department.

As the raids were happening, rumours were rife and stars who were not targetted were seen roaming around Chennai in their glitzy cars fearing tax men! Another woe was the heavy rains that lashed the city. This raid has un-nerved the industry at a time when two biggies are poised for Diwali release.

The industry claims that the raids came about as 2005 was the best year for Tamil industry at the box-office. And the authorities had also got proof that top heroes in Tamil were getting more money per film than Shahrukh Khan in Bollywood!

this whole thing is funny

but the main reason for the raid

50crore? they probably planted it there. why would they raid 'heroines' dwellings? everyone knows they don't get paid well. I highly doubt Ravi & Simbu making crore a film? that article is really vague/

thats $11mil USD? or am I missing a 0?