The Income Tax Department is carrying out survey at the BBC office in Delhi, ANI reported.
BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) is the state-sponsored media of the United Kingdom. Some reports suggest the phones of the employees are seized as well.
The BBC survey was carried out at the BBC premises in view of the BBC’s deliberate non-compliance with the Transfer Pricing Rules and its vast diversion of profits. Transfer Pricing essentially ensures that the transaction between ‘related’ parties is at a price that would be comparable if the transaction was occurring between unrelated parties.
According to sources, there has been persistent non-compliance with the Transfer Pricing rules for years. The sources have informed that BBC has been served several notices by the IT department, however, they have persistently been non-compliant. They have also been allegedly diverting their profits.
The key focus of these surveys is to look into the manipulation of prices for unauthorised benefits, including tax advantages. These surveys have been undertaken due to BBC’s persistent non-compliance with the norms, making it a repeat offender.
In this case, BBC has been:
- Non-compliant under transfer pricing rules;
- Persistent and deliberately violative of transfer pricing norms; and
- Deliberately diverted a significant amount of the profits and have not followed the arm’s length arrangement in the case of allocation of profit
BBC has frequently come under fire for its biased reportage. You can read more about the recent problematic reportage here and here.