AMITAV RANJAN(with K Shriniwas Rao)

NEW DELHI, May 1: To examine service-tax liability, the Central Board of Excise and Customs has asked its regional commissioners to examine all contracts the BCCI has entered on or behalf of the Indian Premier League with all corporate bodies who have either bid for teams or are providing services — from entertainment to broadcasting to advertising.

A fortnight ago, Director General of Service Tax (DGST) told field functionaries to collate findings on “relevant facts, the views regarding taxability of such activities, the amount of service tax involved, the amount of tax dues collected, if any” to be reported to him.

Under the franchise model, a sponsor owning a team pays a stipulated fee to the BCCI to get ownership. The franchisees have to pay 10 percent of the bid amount every year to BCCI, as a franchisee fee. With the auction fetching BCCI $723.59 million, BCCI will get $72.36 million each year.

So the BCCI gets liable to pay service tax under “business auxiliary service.”

Since players, too, are not playing for the country, their purchase fees would be liable to service tax again under BAS.

Broadcasting rights to a consortium of Sony Television and Singapore-based World Sports Group for 10 years for over $1 billion and their sale of time slots for ads would also attract service tax under the broadcasting service.

So would branding of stumps in DLF name, showing its logo on the sidescreen. Naming Pepsi as the IPL official drink for five years for a fee of $12.5 million would also mean that BCCI would have to pay service tax on it.

editor@expressindia.com