Produced by: Hitansh Gaur
The Income Tax officials recently launched a number of probes against certain influencers for allegedly not showing their incomes and profit appropriate to their earnings.
The tax officials recently raided the house of YouTuber Taslim for allegedly earning around Rs 1 crore through illegal means. Taslim Khan hails from Bareilly where he runs a YouTube channel called ‘Trading Hub 3.0’, where he posts videos related to the stock market. The officials found Rs 24 lakh in cash at his house.
Taslim’s father told Aaj Tak, “Income Tax team came on July 16 and they did their investigation. My son was found not guilty and all his documents were also right. My son’s YouTube channel has been going on for a long time and we have earned a lot of money through it. With the money, my son has expanded his business due to which some neighbors got jealous and filed a complaint against my son. This raid is part of a conspiracy.”
Taslim’s brother Feroz told Aaj Tak that they earned around Rs 1 crore and 20 lakh through YouTube and out of which, they paid Rs 40 lakhs in taxes. Feroz manages his brother’s YouTube channel.
There are also reports that content creators are not showing or under-reporting their income in the ITRs because of the ignorance of the tax laws.
There has been a debate about how the earnings of content creators should be categorised. Some experts believe that they should be considered as entrepreneurs if the income exceeds Rs 1 crore while some believe if people create content along with their regular jobs then it should be considered as ‘income from other sources’.
Last month, income tax officials raided the houses of ten YouTubers in Kerala including TV host Pearle Maaney. Some others in the list included vloggers Sujith Bhaktan, Arjyou, Jayaraj G Nath and Akhil.
Actress and internet star Pearle Maaney posts vlogs and tech reviews on her channel, which has 2.5 million subscribers. She started her career as a TV host and went on to become a household name with the show ‘D4Dance’. She was also the runner-up of Bigg Boss Malayalam.
Officials said that these YouTubers earned more than Rs 1 crore to Rs 2 crore and some of them didn’t pay a single rupee in taxes.