Income Tax Dept. investigating IPL tax irregularities

New Delhi : The Income Tax department is sniffing around Indian Premier League (IPL) franchisees and the Indian cricket board to to ascertain the source of investments by the teams, taxability of the incomes & media rights and to detect Direct Tax law violations, the Minister of State for Finance said on Tuesday.

Searches and surveys have been conducted by the department at various places, minister S S Palanimanickam said in reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha.

Information has been gathered from Board of Control fro Cricket in India (BCCI), the teams, and the other entities involved with the IPL.

The I-T department has found that some of the investments have been routed from outside India through entities located in countries such as Mauritius, Bahamas, Virgin Island etc.

References have been made to the tax authorities of these countries to collect details as regards the source of investments, the minister informed.

The investigations are time consuming because the investments have been ?layered? through a number of intermediaries including foreign entities, Palanimanickam said.