Tax evasion and corruption cloud hovers over Indian cricketers and ICC President Sharad Pawar
India’s Central Excise Department has slapped a tax notice on cricketer Yuvraj Singh who has become one of the stars of Indian cricket today. He is a prodigy in the shorter format of the game and is famous for hitting Stuart Broad for six sixes in one over.
With five Indians in the Forbes Top 10 richest cricketers in the world, it does come as a pity how the Indian players fail to pay their taxes despite earning a preposterous amount of money.
This then results’ in the imposition of taxes on the middle class and the poor people surviving in India’s ‘shining’ economy while the rich and the influential seem to be getting away with it. Yuvraj Singh according to Forbes earns $5.5 million per year
from endorsements and playing for the Indian Premier League. The Rs. 11.5 million tax notice is simply on the earnings of the player from his last two seasons of the IPL along with his various endorsements.
Even though the tax consultant of this star player has refuted all such claims of the tax authorities, and has put the onus on the IPL franchise which owns Yuvraj Singh’s team of Kings XI http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Punjab-c833 for the payment of the service tax against the services being
availed by various cricketers in promotional activities during the matches of the Indian Premier League.
The department in their estimate assessed the service tax from playing two seasons of the IPL amounting to Rs. 9.6 million and almost another Rs. 2 million from participating in a television show that is commonly known as ‘Dus ka Dum’ apart from the other
promotional activities and toothpaste advertisements that the cricket player has been a part of.
The Indian players seem to be fond of increasing the tax burden on the general public with Sachin Tendulkar demanding the Government of India sometime in the past to waive of tax duty on the car that was being gifted to him. The people of India hence ended
up paying taxes for Sachin Tendulkar’s Ferrari, and technically and solely technically speaking, it thus belongs to all of them. However, it does not and Sachin drives it.
The Central Excise Department calculated the income of star player Yuvraj Singh which amounts to Rs. 85 million along with Rs.10 million from the TV show and another Rs. 6.5 million from promotional activities for two agencies.
"Players were asked to give the break-up of their earnings from cricket matches and endorsements but they failed to provide us with separate figures. Therefore, we have been forced to levy tax on their income, whether it is match fee earned by players from
IPL-1 and IPL-2 season, after assessing their income on individual basis," the excise department official said.
According to a 2005 estimate by the World Bank, India had 42% of its population living below the poverty line which sums up to hover over the 700 million people mark. However, the politicians and the cricketers continue to exploit their positions by continuously
expecting the poor to pay their taxes.
With the chairman of the ICC Sharad Pawar, who was also the Chief Minister of the state of http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Maharashtra-c811, and is currently the Minister of Agriculture and Pune affairs, bidding for a Pune team in the IPL with a 16% share, which amounts to a preposterous amount
of Rs. 2 billion, it is no surprise that there is great discontent amongst the masses and the general public who no longer have any faith in the corrupt politicians of their country.
With allegations of corruption and misappropriation of state funds, many Indians have spoken against the ICC President. One Indian fan noted “ALL politicians are corrupt scoundrels, and our darling icon, Pawar, is NO exception. The Defence ministry and Chief
Minister, both made him one of the richest politicians in India – that is the verdict of the Indian masses - even if it is not of its inefficient judiciary. Merely painting a wolf does not make it a sheep.”
Therefore, a part of Indian cricket is now infected with this virus, and one can surely hope that the ICC can deal with this issue with complete impartiality.
However, the dilemma is how to deal with a corrupt President of the ICC? This is now the confounding question that baffles all cricket fans.
As http://www.senore.com/Cricket/India-c750’s founding father, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, once said, “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed.”
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