The Parliamentary Panel of India accused the Income Tax Department of being lenient to the BCCI – Cricket News Update
A parliamentary panel was formulated to investigate the financial matters of BCCI and the Indian Premier League, which alleged the Income Tax department for being lax with the Board of Control of Cricket in India (BCCI).
On Tuesday, the panel released its report which stated that the IT department displayed voluntary negligence, permitting the board to fill its personal accounts. This act of BCCI and IT department had damaging effects on the national treasury as the board
made millions but evaded Income Tax.
The BCCI is a strong and rich board and it is speculated that the Board made close to 661 crores from IPL. Since then, it drew strong criticism for hiding the real income and not paying the due taxes.
A committee was formulated by the Indian Parliament to investigate the matters and present its report. This committee was headed by Yashwant Sinha, the former Finance Minister and current BJP leader.
The committee obtained the information from the Income Tax department, Reserve Bank of India and Corporate Affairs Ministry before presenting its report before the Parliament.
It stated that the cricket in http://www.senore.com/Cricket/India-c750 has become excessively commercialized and has been resulting in the violation of laws. The IT department taxed the BCCI far less than the income earned during the Indian Premier League.
The committee asked the BCCI and the Taxing department to prepare the explanatory report and submit it within one month.
The BCCI was initially given tax exemption which was withdrawn in 2009. Since then the Tax department did not assess the board fairly and showed leniency in BCCI’s tax assessment. The exemption decision was reversed because cricket in India had been excessively
commercialised.
The parliamentary committee further came across a few financial wrongdoings related to IPL. It was learnt that the huge investments made by the teams involved in the league were routed through International accounts to avoid the tax on these amounts without
seeking any approval and no notification was made to the concerned departments.
The committee has asked the government to intervene and investigate the matter thoroughly. The committee aims to bring the culprits before media and hold a fair accountability trial.
The report said, “The committee desire that the ROCs and the Ministry of Corporate Affairs should take deterrent action against the defaulting franchises as per the provisions of the Companies Act.”
The report further said that the BCCI should take measures to have tight scrutiny of the cash flows and improve its procedures to avoid any such issues in the future.
The IPL has gained immense popularity and viewership; therefore, BCCI should make sure that it is not associated with any controversy which would bring a bad name to the game.
The Parliamentary panel asked the Income Tax department to review all its decisions taken in the past 2 years concerning the tax exemption for BCCI.
The report also highlighted that BCCI was exempted a tax of 45 crores after the World Cup, which is not fair, as the board made Billions from the biggest event in the cricket world.
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