The NFT craze has taken the global celebrity and entertainment industry by huge storm. Over the past few months world’s several top musicians and Hollywood celebrities have sought to digitize their assets and earned millions by doing so. They have been equally forthcoming about investing in NFTs and buying some of the popular NFTs out there..
On the domestic front, Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan was among the first big Indian celebrity to take the leap and join the NFT bandwagon. Last year in August, Big B tied up with Singapore based marketplace to launch his collection of NFTs including digital posters images etc.
All Big B NFTs apparently gathered a good response but the one particular NFT that stood out and fetched a maximum amount was recitals of Madhushala. Madhushala is a collection of poems written by Amitabh Bachchan’s father Harivansh Rai Bachchan. In all, Mr. Bachchan’s NFTs gathered reportedly Rs 7.15 Cr, a healthy amount considering that awareness about the NFT among Indian diaspora is still very low.
Mr. Bachchan may have been presumably happy about the handsome amount that his maiden NFT sales was able to garner. But Big B’s spirit must have been dampened slightly after the I.T department served him a notice.
According to media reports, the Directorate General of Goods and Service Tax Intelligence (DGGI) few days back served Mr. Bachchan tax notice for non-paid GST bill over his NFT sale last year. The non-paid GST bills amounted to Rs 1.09 Cr, as per media reports.
Reports claim that the Bollywood superstar has already deposited the tax dues with the tax authorities.
Big B has so far not commented on this issue.
This development has come barely a month after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced during her budget speech that all virtual assets including NFTs will be taxed from the next financial year.
The government probably took this decision because despite relentless regulatory crackdown the adoption of digital assets like bitcoins have increased sporadically over the few years or so. The emergence and rise of NFTs has further accelerated the adoption of virtual assets.
For all those who don’t know, NFT stands for non-fungible token. It is a cryptographic or virtual token that is created with the help of blockchain technology.