How global outfits conveniently turn a blind eye to BBC's past tax avoidance issues while criticising India?

In 2016, over 100 BBC presenters were investigated over claims they have not paid enough income tax and insurance contributions while in 2018, BBC was accused of "industrial-level tax avoidance" by stars.

Even as the Income Tax Department surveys on BBC offices in New Delhi and Mumbai entered the second day, international organisations like Amnesty International, New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and a few other organisations have extended their support to the UK-based broadcaster.

Amnesty took to Twitter to slam the Indian government and said, "The practice of Indian authorities to weaponize central agencies against those who dare to be critical of the regime is deeply repressive and undermines free speech. The latest Income Tax raids, which are being masked as 'surveys', against #BBC must end now!"

The controversial outfit's India hea Aakar Patel said, "The tax department's raids, which are being presented as 'surveys', come less than a month after the organization released a documentary that openly criticized Prime Minister Narendra Modi. These raids are a blatant affront to freedom of expression. The Indian authorities are clearly trying to harass and intimidate the BBC over its critical coverage of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

"The overbroad powers of the Income Tax Department are repeatedly being weaponized to silence dissent. Last year, tax officials also raided the offices of a number of NGOs, including Oxfam India. These intimidatory acts, which undermine the right to freedom of expression in India, must end now," he added.

Similarly, the CPJ, supposed to be an independent non-profit outfit, has asked the Indian government not to harass the journalists. "Indian authorities have used tax investigations as a pretext to target critical news outlets before, and must cease harassing BBC employees immediately, in line with the values of freedom that should be espoused in the world's largest democracy," it said.

Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) tweeted: "The searches by the tax authorities of the offices of @BBCWorld in #Inde, 3 weeks after the censorship of his documentary on @narendramodi, constitute an outrageous reprisal."

The officials from the Income Tax department have been carrying out surveys in the BBC's office in Delhi and Mumbai since yesterday morning.

Interestingly, this is not the first time where the BBC has come under scrutiny over tax-related issues. A 2012 report of the Public Accounts Committee in the UK claimed that thousands of employees were not paying their tax at source and the broadcaster had claimed that it could not guarantee that the individuals concerned were paying the right amount of tax, the PAC report said.

Despite hiring employees for long-term, BBC had 148 of its 467 presenters employed through personal service companies.

"These are people who are freelance by their very nature, or certainly that's the way their services want to be provided to the BBC and the use of the service company is therefore there to protect the BBC from any unexpected exposure should HMRC disagree with that position," its Head of Employment Tax, David Smith, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. He claimed that the corporation was "complying with the legislation that is there, absolutely."

In 2016, over 100 BBC presenters were investigated by HM Revenue and Customs over claims they have not paid enough income tax and National Insurance contributions.

The Contractor Calculator reported that the issue came to light following the ruling on a tax tribunal case brought by BBC newsreaders Tim Wilcox and Joanna Gosling who appealed against a previous judgement that they failed to pay enough tax during the period when they were classed as "self-employed".

According to a report in 2018, BBC was accused of "industrial-level tax avoidance" by stars who faced huge bills after a tax probe.

The freelance presenters started their own personal service companies to get paid, which also meant the BBC did not have to pay National Insurance. The tax arrangement was made because the BBC wanted them to, the presenters had alleged.

"If the BBC had held its hands up and said, 'We shouldn't have done this', people would have accepted it. But we have sat by for years watching the BBC say this has nothing to do with them, as if we all spontaneously and independently decided to set up personal service companies at the same time. We were never given the option of being staff. This was industrial-level tax avoidance by the BBC," The Sunday Telegraph quoted one presenter as saying.

Another report claimed that the BBC in 2019 had set aside up to £12 million to pay off the past tax liabilities of BBC presenters being pursued by HMRC for tax avoidance using personal service companies, the BBC annual report revealed.

These reports clearly indicate that BBC has come under scrutiny on earlier occasions as well and organisations responding to I-T surveys in Mumbai and Delhi offices are reacting without taking its past tax avoidance issue into consideration.