Sports ministry to intervene to settle BCCI tax issue

Before the start of cricket world cup, the government wants to settle the tax evasion dispute with the Board for Cricket Control in India. The BCCI is facing Income Tax probe over alleged tax evasion worth Rs 566 crore for two years ending 2009-10. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Jan 28, 2011, 23:54:20 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Before the start of cricket world cup, the government wants to settle the tax evasion dispute with the Board for Cricket Control in India (BCCI).

The BCCI is already facing Income Tax probe over alleged tax evasion worth Rs 566 crore for two years ending 2009-10. The board had claimed exemption to Rs 421 crore income for 2008-09 and Rs 145 crore for 2009-10.

However, the department is not keen to accept the exemption saying it was for Indian Premier League, which did not fall within exemption given to regular sports.

In a bid to find a middle path, the Sports Ministry has called a meeting with BCCI and the Income Tax department officials next week.

"The BCCI has been a generous and biggest donor to the National Sports Fund," Youth and Sports Affairs minister Ajay Maken told HT.

In the last three years, the board, richest sports body in India, has given about Rs 50 crore for the fund. The money is being used to train sportspersons for the London Olympics next year. It is the biggest donation from any individual or a sports body to the national fund.

For the ministry, pursuing the cause of BCCI will be tough as it is a private body unlike other sports federations, which are societies having certain accountability to the government.

"The BCCI has claimed itself to be a private body exempted from any government interference. Therefore, it seeking tax exemption is not legally very sound," a ministry official said.

But the ministry is looking at the possibility of striking a compromise between the BCCI and the Income Tax department. As per rules, the department can impose penalty of 100 to 300 times for not paying the tax. The BCCI has already filed an appeal with Income Tax Appellate Tribunal for seeking exemption.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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