FACE THE NATION | RICH N FAMOUS GET TAX BREAK
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Should tax laws be more stringent for celebrities?
Published on Wed, May 16, 2007 at 08:37, Updated on Mon, Jun 25, 2007 at 19:30 in Sports section
Tags: Face The Nation, Taxes , New Delhi
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New Delhi: The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has claimed that cricketers Sachin Tendulkar and Sunil Gavaskar have not paid all their taxes, due to provisions of tax deductions wrongly applied by the Income Tax department.
Sachin Tendulkar was apparently given exemption on tax from income that he received from endorsements. The CAG has now stated that it wants a reassessment of Sachin's income between the years 2000 and 2003.
The shortfall of taxes that they are supposed to have paid comes to a whopping Rs 4.42 crore.
The CAG has also accused the BCCI of running only for the personal benefit of its office bearers and said that the BCCI should have been charged Rs 60.3 crore more in taxes than it has been.
The question that was being debated on Face The Nation was: Should tax laws be more stringent for celebrities?
On the panel to try and answer the question were Director Collage Sports Management, Latika Khaneja; and Tax Consultant, Subhash Lakhotia.
Tax Planning, Not Tax Evasion
Latika Khaneja was very clear when she said that she believed there was a difference between tax evasion and tax planning.
"I think that laws should be the same for all people. Most people feel that their tax is being planned and that the exemption is given from the I-T department, so to say that the celebrity is evading tax is slightly irresponsible on the part of the media," she stated.
Subhash Lakhotia agreed saying that all taxpayers were equal in the eyes of the law. "If someone is a celebrity, it does not mean that he has to necessarily be given a special provision. Equality is the rule of the law," he said.
But the initial poll result on the show suggested that 84 per cent of the people who sent in their responses were in favour of stringent tax laws being applied to celebrities.
Rebate Or Deliberate?
Despite the poll result, Khaneja stressed on the fact that people must understand that it was not a deliberate attempt at tax evasion on Sachin Tendulkar's or Sunil Gavaskar's part.
Lakhotia however, stated that the reason why people wanted more stringent laws was the fact that they look up to the likes of Sachin Tendulkar as a role model and a role model should always be someone with a clean record.
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