Survey at BBC ends; tax authorities unhappy

New Delhi: The income and profits shown by various British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) group entities are "not commensurate" with the scale of their operations in India and tax has not been paid on certain remittances by its foreign entities, the income tax authorities said Friday.

The I-T department had launched the survey exercise on February 14 at BBC offices in Delhi and Mumbai and it ended after about 60 hours on Thursday night.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) issued a statement without identifying the company but said the survey was conducted at the business premises of group entities of a prominent international media company which is engaged in the business of development of content in English, Hindi and various other Indian languages, advertisement sales and market support services, etc.

The statement alleged various tax-linked irregularities against the London-headquartered company and accused it of using "dilatory tactics" during the course of the survey.

The survey revealed that despite substantial consumption of content in various Indian languages (apart from English), the income/profits shown by various group entities (of BBC) is not commensurate with the scale of operations in India.

The BBC, after tax teams left their premises on Thursday, said they will "continue to cooperate with the authorities and hope matters are resolved as soon as possible."

The survey prompted Opposition parties to denounce the I-T department action as they termed it "political vendetta".

The BJP had accused the BBC of "venomous reporting" while the Opposition had questioned the timing of the action that came weeks after the broadcaster aired a two-part documentary, "India: The Modi Question", on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the 2002 Gujarat riots.