It said that the IT department allowed Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to “enrich its coffers at the expense of the exchequer”.
“It is a matter of surprise that when the crass commercialisation of cricket was visible to the entire world, the Income Tax Department chose to ignore it. When they finally woke up from their slumber and decided to withdraw the tax exemption, it was on a mere ‘technical’ ground of promoting other sports,” the report said.
The Standing Committee on Finance headed by former Finance Minister and senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha, has asked the IT department, Reserve Bank of India and Corporate Affairs Ministry to expedite their investigations into the affairs of the BCCI and the Indian Premier League (IPL).
“The Committee would like the Government to thoroughly investigate the fore-mentioned violations committed by BCCI and other specified IPL franchises,” the report said.
The report of the Committee, which was tabled in Parliament, Tuesday regretted that the much-loved cricket -a gentleman’s game is getting “sullied and embroiled in transgressions of law off the field”.
The Committee said that ITD has been very lenient in taxing BCCI and the matters should be “thoroughly probed and an action taken report (be) furnished to the Committee within one month”.
Although the tax exemption granted to BCCI was withdrawn in December 2009 with retrospective effect from assessment year 2007-08, the ITD has not been able to complete scrutiny assessment for some years, the report said.