I-T to extend raid to all IPL teams

Mumbai : A day after income tax officials on raided the offices of the Indian Premier League, sources have confirmed to Zee News that their will be more such fact finding searches on all the franchise of the cash awash league.

I-T department in India is on a fact finding mission of total income and expenditure incurred by the IPL teams and how much tax is yet to be paid by the respective franchises. Investing officers have reportedly seized three hard disks which would provide complete details. Earlier, a special team of the Income-Tax Department on Thursday visited the headquarters of the T20 Indian Premier League here in connection with an inquiry into financial details and shareholding patterns of all the IPL franchisees. Official sources said the visit was part of a “source probe” initiated by the Revenue Department in the Finance Ministry to look into the financing aspects of the multicrore IPL, in the wake of the controversy over the funding of IPL Kochi, the new franchisee. The IPL is housed in the BCCI building at the Wankhede stadium. The sources maintained that the visit could not be termed a “survey or search” and was undertaken under Section 133 (6) of the I-T Act, which pertains to the power to call for information. The team also sought some documents. IPL Commissioner Lalit Modi said the IT team`s visit was only an inquiry and not a raid. The sources said the IT Department had created a special cell in Mumbai to keep a tab on all income generated by the IPL. The probe had been initiated to find out if there was any illegal flow of funds or whether black money was being pumped into the sporting extravaganza.