Income-Tax Department carries out surveys at premises of BBC offices in Delhi and Mumbai
Income-Tax Department Tuesday carried out surveys at the premises of British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in Delhi and Mumbai.
Government officials said the surveys were conducted in view of the BBC’s “deliberate non-compliance with the transfer pricing rules” and its “vast diversion of profits”. They are expected to continue Wednesday.
A survey, conducted under Section 133A of the I-T Act, is usually a precursor to a search and seizure operation, and takes place only at business premises.
I-T officials look into the books of accounts, bank accounts, cash, stock and non-valuable documents during a survey. In recent surveys, they have impounded phones and laptops of assessees, and returned these in a couple of days.
Officials in the government said the focus of the surveys on BBC is to look into “manipulation of prices for unauthorised benefits, including tax advantages”. They alleged BBC has been non-compliant under transfer pricing rules; persistent and deliberately violative of transfer pricing norms. It deliberately diverted a significant amount of profits, and did not follow the arm’s length arrangement in the case of allocation of profit, they claimed.