Indian authorities accuse BBC of tax evasion after searches

NEW DELHI –

India’s Finance Ministry accused the BBC of tax evasion on Friday, saying that it had not totally declared its revenue and income from its operations within the nation.

Indian tax authorities ended three days of searches of the British broadcaster’s New Delhi and Mumbai workplaces on Thursday evening. Opposition political events and different media organizations have criticized the searches as an try and intimidate the media.

Critics of Prime Minister Narendra Modi have additionally questioned the timing of the searches, which got here weeks after the BBC aired a documentary within the U.Okay. that was vital of Modi.

“The department gathered several evidences pertaining to the operation of the organization which indicate that tax has not been paid on certain remittances which have not been disclosed as income in India by the foreign entities of the group,” the Central Board of Direct Taxes stated in an announcement.

It stated they discovered “several discrepancies and inconsistencies” and had gathered “crucial evidence” from statements of workers, digital proof and paperwork which might be examined extra totally later.

The assertion additionally accused the BBC of not paying full taxes on the earnings of workers who got here from overseas and labored in India for brief durations.

The BBC stated in an announcement that it will “respond appropriately to any direct formal communication received from the Income Tax Department.”

“We are supporting staff — some of whom have faced lengthy questioning or been required to stay overnight — and their welfare is our priority. Our output is back to normal and we remain committed to serving our audiences in India and beyond,” it stated.

The Press Trust of India news company cited unidentified officers as saying on Thursday that investigators collected monetary information from choose BBC staffers and made copies of digital and paper information from the news group.

It stated the authorities have been investigating points associated to worldwide taxation and switch pricing of BBC subsidiary corporations.

The chief of India’s important opposition Congress celebration, Mallikarjun Kharge, described the search of the BBC workplaces as an assault on freedom of the press underneath Modi’s authorities.

Reporters Without Borders, a world media watchdog, denounced the federal government’s motion as “attempts to clamp down on independent media.”

“These raids have all the appearance of a reprisal against the BBC for releasing a documentary critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi three weeks ago. They have come at a time when independent media are being hounded more and more, and when pluralism is shrinking in India due to increased media concentration,” the group stated in an announcement on Thursday.

The documentary, “India: The Modi Question,” was broadcast within the U.Okay. final month, analyzing the prime minister’s position in 2002 anti-Muslim riots within the western state of Gujarat, the place he was chief minister on the time. More than 1,000 individuals have been killed within the violence.

Modi has denied allegations that authorities underneath his watch allowed and even inspired the bloodshed, and the Supreme Court stated it discovered no proof to prosecute him. Last yr, the court docket dismissed a petition filed by a Muslim sufferer questioning Modi’s exoneration.

The program drew an instantaneous backlash from India’s authorities, which invoked emergency powers underneath its data know-how legal guidelines to dam it from being proven within the nation. Local authorities scrambled to cease screenings organized at Indian universities, and social media platforms together with Twitter and YouTube complied with authorities requests to take away hyperlinks to the documentary.

The BBC stated on the time that the documentary was “rigorously researched” and concerned a variety of voices and opinions.

“We offered the Indian Government a right to reply to the matters raised in the series — it declined to respond,” it stated.

India’s Foreign Ministry referred to as the documentary a “propaganda piece designed to push a particularly discredited narrative” that lacked objectivity.

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Associated Press author Jill Lawless in London contributed to this report.