How many dollars does Shah Rukh Khan make? The Govt wants to know

The Indian Government now wants to know how much dollars Indians are making abroad. It wants to know how much money Bollywood celebrities such as Shah Rukh Khan, Kangana Ranaut, Indian companies selling animation, gaming and visual effect services to foreign companies make.

The plan comes in the backdrop of India’s increasing share in global services trade. The share has doubled from 5% in last 10 years.

Apart from film industry, the Government wants to collect data from trade in services from logistics, telecom and professional services, including accounting, law, medical tourism and market research.

ET quoted officials saying the government also plans to strictly implement, penalty provision of the Collection of Statistics Act for firms that fail to report foreign exchange earnings.

The Centre will hold surveys of companies that earn foreign exchange from services of various categories.

Officials told ET they do not expect firms to worry about government keeping their data confidential and instead they should worry about giving out data on full foreign exchange earnings because of tax implications.

At present, the Reserve Bank of India estimates foreign exchange earnings by data from Nasscom, and the tourism ministry, and from foreign exchange transactions reported by banks to the RBI.