NEW DELHI: The T20 World Cup is just 10 months away, and the International Cricket Council (ICC) has already earmarked the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as a backup venue to host the seventh edition of mega event, leaving designated host board BCCI stuck between a rock and a hard place.
With the Union government thus far refusing “to play ball”, the Indian cricket board could end up paying up to Rs 9.06 billion in taxes for staging the tournament in the country this year, IANS reports. Even if the government grants partial exemption, the board will have to pay at least Rs 2.27 billion if it wants to host the tournament, the newswire further reports.
The last deadline the BCCI missed was December 31, 2020 and the revised “final” deadline is in February.
An application of the BCCI, seeking full tax exemption for the 2021 T20 World Cup, is lying with the union finance ministry for a long time, but the Narendra Modi-led government is yet to take a final decision on the request.
Interestingly, the BCCI is not even a recognised national sports federation by the sports ministry.
The BCCI has missed a couple of deadlines, set by the ICC, for securing full tax exemption.
According to the agency, the ICC has given two options to the BCCI. They are: the T20 World Cup will be relocated to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and the other is that it provides an undertaking that if it fails to get the exemption then it will have to meet the tax liabilities, which could be a minimum of Rs 2.2658 billion (Rs 226.58 crore) and a high of Rs 9.0633 billion (Rs 906.33 crore).
Ironically, the BCCI’s application for tax exemption has been in limbo despite the well documented connections of the BCCI’s top brass within the Union government. Board secretary Jay Shah is the son of Uniom Home Minister Amit Shah and BCCI treasurer Arun Singh Dhumal is the younger brother of Anurag Thakur, Minister of State for Finance and Corporate Affairs. And it is the Finance Ministry that will take the final call on tax exemption.
In 2011 as well, when ODI World Cup was held in India, the Manmohan Singh-led government sat on the application from the BCCI for inordinately long, before the then Prime Minister himself intervened and granted it at the last minute.
But for the 2016 T20 World Cup, staged in India, the government had granted only 10 per cent tax exemption and not full. And because the government had not granted full tax exemption, the ICC has withheld $23.75 million from the share that the BCCI was entitled to receive from the game’s world governing body, IANS notes.
For the record, when the ICC allots its tournaments, the two parties — ICC and tournament hosting country – sign a host agreement that binds the host to secure full tax exemption.
If the government eventually declines, the decision may affect BCCI’s chances of hosting the 50-over World Cup in 2023, already allotted to India, as well. Experts say that if the government declined exemption for the 2021 T20 World Cup, it was unlikely that it would change its mind for the 2023 World Cup, which will also require full tax exemption.
