For Whom The Tax Tolls

Why the entertainment toll on Fashion Weeks is completely justified. And the 50 per cent waiver is not

Indian fashion wants to have its apple, eat it (no one here eats cake) and complain that the mineral water isn’t Evian. Fashion designers bare their bleeding hearts and talk about the injustices the government is piling on their poor souls, while sipping on Chivas 12 (Rs 2,700 a bottle) which they drink only because Chivas is a sponsor.

The fashion industry is struggling to come to grips with the 7.5 per cent entertainment tax that the Delhi government has imposed on fashion weeks. That 50 per cent of the tax has already been waived is hardly consolation to a child who’s just been told to split his chocolate.

The fashion fraternity throws the word they love to use for the Fashion Week—B2B (business-to-business) event— to argue that the entertainment tax is unfair because it’s not for entertainment. Unfortunately for them, fashion weeks are by now well known for being an entertainment circus. At the India Couture Week in Mumbai earlier this month, Fashion Design Council of India (FDCI) President Sunil Sethi proudly announced, “Full Entertainment Guaranteed here.”

Though fashion designers publicly turn up their noses at Bollywood celebrities on the runway and look down on Bollywood designers, everyone is secretly sending desperate messages to rope in Bollywood actors. Often, with disastrous results. Remember politician-turned actress Jaya Prada walking down the runway like a plucked peroxide chicken at the recently concluded Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week? Another designer paid around Rs 1 lakh to get Brazilian-born Bollywood actress Giselli Monteiro to walk the runway.

If there are any doubts about Indian fashion being more entertainment than business, the show of designer Sanjana Jon (of unverifiable design antecedents) sealed it. The show had Salman Khan, Sohail Khan and half a dozen others walking in clothes that would have had Karol Bagh stores shrieking in horror.

Designers like Rahul Mishra are clear that fashion can be called business only once Bollywood show-stoppers are stopped. And when the fashion fraternity treats fashion weeks like business fairs and stops wooing the media. Instead, we have the  man supposed to be the head of the B2B fair being perfectly happy with shows starting 45 minutes late. Reason: Kapil Dev, a show-starter for a designer, got confused between the gates of Pragati Maidan.

Hell, the government should just rescind the 50 per cent tax waiver, irrespective of whether fashion weeks are business events or not. If it is a business event, the government is justified in asking for a piece of the pie. And if it’s an entertainment event, then even the circus could use the tax holiday.

About The Author

Kabeer Sharma