Mauritius, Bahamas, Virgin Island approached for IPL

The government today said Indian tax authorities have approached their counterparts in Mauritius, Bahamas and Virgin Island to collect source of investments of BCCI, IPL franchisees and other entities involved with the Indian Premier League (IPL).

"...Investment 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," Minister of State for Finance S S Palanimanickam said in a written reply to Rajya Sabha.

He further said that income tax department is conducting investigations in the case of BCCI-IPL and the franchisees to ascertain the source of investments by the teams, taxability of the income earned, taxability of the award of media rights and to detect violation of direct tax laws.

"Searches and surveys have been conducted by the income tax department at various places. Information has been gathered from BCCI, respective teams, public domain and the other entities involved with IPL," Palanimanickam added.

He further said that assessments of some of the entities related to IPL have been centralised for co-ordinated investigations.

"The investigations are time consuming because the investments have been layered through a number of intermediaries, including foreign entities," he added.