Amitabh Bachchan allegedly paid more than $130,700 in goods and services tax in November on the sale of non-fungible tokens.
According to local media sources, Bollywood celebrity and Indian icon Amitabh Bachchan paid more than US$130,700 (about 10 million Indian rupees) in goods and services tax (GST) on the sale of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in November last year.
Bachchan’s NFTs, which are accessible on the beyondlife.club website, were sold for around US$966,000 in an auction hosted by Beyondlife, a joint venture between Rhiti Entertainment and GuardianLink.io, and would be subject to an 18 percent GST.
The collection contained the NFT collection ‘Madhushala,’ narrations of his father Harivansh Rai Bachchan’s writings, and antique posters containing seven signed posters, among others.
India’s tax authorities launched investigations and issued notifications of tax evasion to investors dealing in cryptocurrencies and NFTs after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s proposal to amend the Income Tax Act to include NFTs as virtual digital assets.
Outside of local office hours, an email sent to Indian tax officials was not responded to at the time of publishing. No response was received to an email submitted to Bachchan’s public relations agency.
This is not the first time Bachchan has found himself in the tax department’s sights. When he purchased property in his native state of Uttar Pradesh in 2010, he registered his occupation as a farmer to comply with local rules demanding a change in the land’s usage for agriculture. Agriculturists are exempt from paying taxes on agricultural income.
Several Bollywood stars and celebrities, including Salman Khan and Manish Malhotra, as well as athletes Zaheer Khan and Rishabh Pant, have invested in the NFT marketplace in the hope of cracking gold via NFT-based auctions.
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