BBC Admits It Underreported Rs 40 Crore Income, Paid Lower Taxes In India

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has admitted that it evaded taxes in India, according to a report in Hindustan Times. The UK-based media company is yet to file revised returns.

It sent an email to CBDT admitting that it underreported Rs 40 crore of income in its tax returns. An official has told the daily that the media house should file IT returns and email has no "legal sanctity."

Another official stated that the law is the same to everyone in the country and it applies to media houses as well. "BBC must act as per the stated procedure or face the law. The Department will continue to take action against it until the matter is taken to the logical conclusion," the official told the daily.

The officer further stated that the UK-based company tried to project initially that it was a vendetta by the BJP government following the controversial series against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "Now, they informally accept they were involved in deliberate tax evasion and the action was against their unscrupulous behaviour," he said.

In February, the Income Department conducted surveys at the BBC offices in Delhi and Mumbai. Tax authorities made an inventory of the available stock, recorded the statement of some staffers and impounded some documents as part of the survey action that continued for three days clocking about 57-58 hours, officials had told PTI.

The survey was carried out to investigate issues related to international taxation and transfer pricing of BBC subsidiary companies, they had said. The I-T teams had reportedly sought answers on financial transactions, the company structure and other details about the news company, and copied data from electronic gadgets as part of their task of collecting the evidence.

"Survey operations also revealed that services of seconded employees have been utilised for which reimbursement has been made by the Indian entity to the foreign entity concerned. Such remittance was also liable to be subject to withholding tax which has not been done," the statement from the I-T had said.

However, the Opposition parties and some organisations denounced the I-T department action against BBC, terming it "political vendetta".